LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

GIFT   OF 

Mrs.  SARAH  P.  WALS WORTH. 

Received  October,  1894. 
Accessions  No .$£-     -      Class  No.  '. 


THE  SLAVE  POWER : 


ITS 


CHARACTER,  CAREER,  AND  PROBABLE  DESIGNS: 


UE1NG 


AN  ATTEMPT  TO  EXPLAIN  THE  REAL  ISSUES  INVOLVED 
IN  THE  AMERICAN  CONTEST. 


BY 


J.  E.  CAIRNES,  M.A., 


PROFESSOR  OF  JURISPRUDENCE  AND   POLITICAL  ECONOMY  IN   QUEEN'S   COLLEGE,   GALWAT ;   AND 
LATE  WIIATELY  PROFESSOR  OF  POLITICAL  ECONOMY  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  DUBLIN.    t 


SECOND  EDITION. 


NEW  YORK: 

Carle  ton,  Publisher,  413   Broad  way  • 

(LONDON  :  PARKER,  SON  &  Co.) 


M  DCCC  LXII, 

i 


1  /v 

C5 


"  7  ^wA/  #z.rc7y  _^mtf  /to  tf/;#0.r/  #//  /&?  differences,  which 
may  he  remarked  between  the  characters  of  the  Americans  in 
the  Southern  and  Northern  States,  have  originated  in  Slavery" 
-DE  TocguEViLLE. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1S62,  by 
GEO.  W.  CAELETON, 

In  the  Office  of  the  Clerk  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States,  for  the  Southern  District  of 

New  York. 


K.   CRAIG  HEAD, 

Primer,  Stcreotyper,  and  Electrotyper 

Caiton  Entitling, 

til,  83,  and  85  Centre  Strat, 


PREFACE  TO  THE  AMERICAN  EDITION. 


LITTLE  by  way  of  introduction  is  needed  for  an  American  edi 
tion  of  the  present  volume.  The  object  of  the  work  is  stated 
clearly  and  concisely  in  the  author's  preface.  Considering  Sla 
very  as  the  true  origin  of  the  civil  war  now  existing,  he  treats 
of  its  economic  basis,  of  the  organization,  tendencies,  develop 
ment,  and  external  policy  of  slave  societies,  and  of  the  career 
and  designs  of  the  slave  power,  with  the  calmness  of  an  impar 
tial  and  philosophic  observer,  and  in  a  popular  and  practical 
manner.  Democratic  institutions,  territorial  extension,  tariff 
questions,  state  rights,  secession,  and  all  other  subjects,  which 
either  at  home  or  abroad  have  been  made  use  of  to  complicate 
the  quarrel,  are  here  put  aside  as  irrelevant;  and  the  philoso 
phic  observer  concentrates  the  attention  of  his  readers  on  the 
simple  issue  at  stake — "  whether  the  Power  which  derives  its 
strength  from  slavery  shall  be  set  up  with  enlarged  resources 
and  increased  prestige,  or  be  now  once  for  all  effectually  broken." 
Similar  views  and  arguments  relating  to  this  all-absorbing 
topic  may  no  doubt  be  found  scattered  through  the  current  litera 
ture  of  the  day,  expressed  with  all  the  warmth  natural  to  those 
whose  feelings  and  interests  are  immediately  affected.  Earnest 
and  thoughtful  books  have  also  been  written  here  by  men  whose 
testimony  may  be  relied  upon,  and  which  have  had  more  or 
less  influence  upon  public  opinion.  But  the  present  volume 
has  an  advantage  over  any  work  written  on  this  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  that  it  is  free  from  any  imputation  of  party  or  sectional 
bias;  that  it  has  something  of  the  tone  of  a  historic  analysis  of 
a  grand  social  drama  which  has  been  acted,  rather  than  of  one 
of  which  the  curtain  of  the  fifth  act  has  just  risen ;  and  it  will 
on  that  account  be  acceptable  to  men  of  all  shades  of  political 
opinion,  while  its  clear  style  and  systematic  arrangement  of 
subject  will  be  grateful  to  all,  young  as  well  as  old.  The 
chapter  relating  to  the  career  of  the  Slave  Power  is  particu- 


viii  PREFACE  TO  THE  AMERICAN  EDITION. 

larly  distinguished  for  the  compact  and  clear  summary  of  its 
operations  in  important  political  crises,  from  the  date  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise  Act  to  that  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill. 
In  the  concluding  pages  the  author  ventures  to  foretell  how  the 
drama  will  end.  As  prophecy  nowadays  is  not  an  irreversible 
fiat,  hut  simply  an  impressive  form  of  admonition,  those  who 
do  not,  like  its  intimations  can  easily  take  precautions  against 
their  fulfilment,  but  it  must  be  by  the  argument  of  acts,  not  by 
that  of  words. 

From  the  present  date  to  the  first  of  January  next,  the  project 
of  Emancipation  proposed  in  the  recent  Proclamation  by  the 
President  will  engross  the  minds  of  all.  This  proclamation, 
which  has  been  added  to  the  American  edition,  will  be  found 
on  the  next  page.  It  marks  an  important  crisis  in  the  war.  The 
whole  question  of  Slavery  will  for  the  next  three  months  be 
canvassed  with  renewed  energy:  and  the  American  publisher 
conceives  that  in  issuing  this  work  he  will  famish  a  hand-book 
which  contains  a  well  digested  survey  of  the  political  and 
social  problems  involved.  Though  the  position  of  affairs  has 
changed  since  these  pages  were  originally  written,  they  will 
be  none  the  less  a  timely  aid  and  guide  to  thought. 


BY  THE  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 


A    PROCLAMATION. 

I,  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,  President  of  the  United  States,  and  Com- 
rnander-in -Chief  of  the  Army  and  Navy  thereof,  do  hereby  proclaim 
and  declare,  that  hereafter,  as  heretofore,  the  war  will  be  prosecuted  for 
the  objivt  of  practically  restoring  the  constitutional  relation  between  the 
United  States  and  the  people  thereof,  in  which  States  that  relation  is  or 
may  be  suspended  or  disturbed. 

That  it  is  my  purpose  at  the  next  meeting  of  Congress  to  again 
recommend  the  adoption  of  a  practical  measure,  tendering  pecuniary  aid 
to  the  free  acceptance  or  rejection  of  all  the  Slave  States,  so  called,  the 
people  whereof  may  not  then  be  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States, 
and  which  States  may  then  have  voluntarily  adopted,  or  thereafter  may 
voluntarily  adopt,  immediate  or  gradual  abolishment  of  slavery  within 
their  respective  limits,  and  that  the  effort  to  colonize  persons  of  African 
descent,  with  their  consent,  upon  this  continent,  or  elsewhere,  with  the 
previously  obtained  consent  of  the  governments  existing  there,  will  be 
continued. 

That  on  the  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thou 
sand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-three,  all  persons  held  as  slaves  within  any 
State,  or  any  designated  part  of  a  State,  the  people  whereof  shall  be  in 
rebellion  against  the  United  States,  shall  be  then,  thenceforward,  and  for 
ever,  free  ;  and  the  Executive  Government  of  the  United  States,  includ 
ing  the  military  and  naval  authority  thereof,  will  recognise  and  main 
tain  the  freedom  of  such  persons,  and  will  do  no  act  or  nets  to  repress 
such  persons,  or  any  of  them,  in  any  efforts  they  may  make  for  their 
actual  freedom. 

.That  the  Executive  will,  on  the  first  day  of  January  aforesaid,  by 
proclamation,  designate  the  States,  or  parts  of  States,  if  any,  in  which 
the  people  thereof  respectively  shall  then  be  in  rebellion  agai.ist  the 
United  States ;  and  the  fact  that  any  State  or  the  people  thereof  shall 
on  that  day  be  in  good  faith  represented  in  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States  by  members  chosen  thereto  at  elections  wherein  a  majority  of  the 
qualified  voters  of  such  State  shall  have  participated,  shall,  in  the 
absence  of  strong  countervailing  testimony,  be  deemed  conclusive  evi 
dence  that  such  State  and  the  people  thereof  are  not  in  rebellion  against 
the  United  States. 

That  attention  is  hereby  called  to  an  Act  of  Congress,  entitled,  "  An 
Act  to  make  an  additional  article  of  war,"  approved  March  13,  18G2, 
and  which  Act  is  in  the  words  and  figures  following  : — 


xvi  PRESIDENT  LINCOLWS  PROCLAMATION. 

Be  it  enacted  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United  States 
of  America  in  Congress  assembled,  That  hereafter  the  following  shall  be  promul 
gated  as  an  additional  article  of  war  for  the  government  of  the  army  of  the  United 
States,  and  shall  be  obeyed  and  observed  as  such : — 

ARTICLE .  All  officers  or  persons  in  the  military  or  naval  service  of  the  United 

States  are  prohibited  from  employing  any  of  the  forces  under  their  respective  com 
mands  for  the  purpose  of  returning  fugitives  from  service  or  labor  who  may  have 
escaped  from  any  person  to  whom  such  service  or  labor  is  claimed  to  be  due,  and 
any  officer  who  shall  be  found  guilty  by  court-martial  of  violating  this  article  shall 
be  dismissed  from  the  service. 

SECTION  2.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  this  act  shall  take  effect  from  and 
after  its  passage. 

Also  to  the  9th  and  10th  sections  of  an  Act  entitled  "  An  Act  to  sup 
press  insurrection,  to  punish  treason  and  rebellion,  to  seize  and  confiscate 
property  of  rebels,  and  for  other  purposes,"  approved  July  17,  1862,  and 
which  sections  are  in  the  words  and  figures  following  : — 

SECTION  9.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  all  slaves  of  persons  who  shall  here 
after  be  engaged  in  rebellion  against  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  or  who 
shall  in  any  way  give  aid  or  comfort  thereto,  escaping  from  such  persons,  and  taking 
refuge  within  the  lines  of  the  army,  and  all  slaves  captured  from  such  persons,  or 
deserted  by  them,  and  coming  under  the  control  of  the  government  of  the  United 
States,  and  all  slaves  of  such  persons  found  on  or  being  within  any  place  occupied 
by  rebel  forces,  and  afterwards  occupied  by  the  forces  of  the  United  States,  shall  be 
deemed  captures  of  war,  and  shall  be  for  ever  free  of  their  servitude,  and  not  again 
held  as  slaves. 

SECTION  10.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  no  slave,  escaping  into  any  State, 
Territory,  or  the  District  of  Columbia,  from  any  of  the  States,  shall  be  delivered  up, 
or  in  any  way  impeded  or  hindered  of  his  liberty,  except  for  crime,  or  some  offence 
against  the  laws,  unless  the  person  claiming  said  fugitive  shall  first  make  oath  that 
the  person  to  whom  the  labor  or  service  of  such  fugitive  is  alleged  to  be  due  is  his 
lawful  owner,  and  has  not  been  in  arms  against  the  United  States  in  the  present 
rebellion,  nor  in  any  way  given  aid  and  comfort  thereto ;  and  no  person  engaged  in 
the  military  or  naval  service  of  the  United  States  shall,  under  any  pretence  what 
ever,  assume  to  decide  on  the  validity  of  the  claim  of  any  person  to  the  service  or 
labor  of  any  other  person,  or  surrender  up  any  such  person  to  the  claimant,  on  pain 
of  being  dismissed  from  the  service. 

And  I  do  hereby  enjoin  and  order  all  persons  engaged  in  the  military 
and  naval  service  of  the  United  States  to  observe,  obey,  and  enforce 
within  their  respective  spheres  of  service,  the  acts  and  sections  above 
recited ;  and  the  Executive  will  in  due  time  recommend  that  all  citizens 
of  the  United  States  who  shall  have  remained  loyal  thereto  throughout 
the  rebellion,  shall,  upon  the  restoration  of  the  constitutional  relations 
between  the  United  States  and  their  respective  States  and  people,  if  the 
relations  shall  have  been  suspended  or  disturbed,  be  compensated  for  all 
losses  by  acts  of  the  United  States,  including  the  loss  of  slaves. 

In  witness  whereof  I  have  hereunto  set  my  hand,  and  caused  the  seal 
of  the  United  States  to  be  affixed. 

Done  at  the  City  of  Washington,  this  22d  day  of  September,  in  the 
year  of  our  Lord  18G2,  and  of  the  Independence  of  the  United  States 
the  eio-htv-seventh. 

&         •> 

]>y  the  President,  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

WM.  II.  SEWARD,  Secretary  of  State. 


P  R  E  F  A  C  E  . 


IT  is  proper  that  I  should  state  the  circumstances  under  which  the  pre 
sent  volume  is  offered  to  the  public.  The  substance  of  it  formed  the 
matter  of  a  course  of  lectures  delivered  about  a  year  since  in  the  Uni 
versity  of  Dublin.  In  selecting  the  subject  of  North  American  slavery 
I  was  influenced  in  the  first  instance  by  considerations  of  a  purely  specu 
lative  kind — my  object  being  to  show  that  the  course  of  history  is 
largely  determined  by  the  action  of  economic  causes.  To  causes  of 
this  description,  it  seemed  to  me,  the  fortunes  of  slavery  in  North  Ame 
rica — its  establishment  in  one  half  of  the  Union  and  its  disappearance 
from  the  other — were  directly  to  be  ascribed ;  while  to  that  institution, 
in  turn,  the  leading  differences  in  the  character  of  the  Northern  and 
Southern  people,  as  well  as  that  antagonism  of  interests  between  the 
two  sections  which  has  issued  in  a  series  of  political  conflicts  extending 
over  half  a  century,  were  no  less  distinctly  traceable.  The  course  of 
events,  however,  since  I  first  took  up  the  subject,  has  given  to  it  an 
interest  far  other  than  speculative,  and  has  rendered  conclusions,  of 
which  the  value  (if  they  possessed  any)  was  little  more  than  scientific, 
directly  applicable  to  problems  of  immediate  and  momentous  interest. 
Under  these  circumstances  I  h-ave  been  induced  to  extend  considerably 
the  original  plan  of  my  investigations,  and  to  give  the  whole  subject  a 
popular  and  practical  treatment,  in  the  hope  of  contributing  something 
to  the  elucidation  of  a  question  of  vast  importance,  not  only  to  Ame 
rica,  but  to  the  whole  civilized  world. 

The  rapid  movement  of  events,  accompanied  by  no  less  rapid  fluctua 
tions  in  public  opinion,  during  the  progress  of  the  work,  will  explain, 
and,  it  is  hoped,  will  procure  indulgence  for,  some  obvious  imperfections. 
Some  topics,  it  is  probable,  will  be  found  to  be  treated  with  greater  ful 
ness,  and  some  arguments  to  be  urged  with  greater  vehemence,  than  the 
present  position  of  affairs  or  the  present  state  of  public  feeling  may 
appear  to  require.  For  example,  I  have  been  at  some  pains  to  show 
that  the  question  at  issue  between  North  and  South  is  not  one  of  tariffs — 
a  thesis  prescribed  to  me  by  the  state  of  the  discussion  six  months  ago, 
when  the  affirmative  of  this  view  was  pertinaciously  put  forward  by 
writers  in  the  interest  of  the  South,  but  which,  at  the  present  time,  when 
this  explanation  of  the  war  appears  to  have  been  tacitly  abandoned,  can 
not  but  appear  a  rather  gratuitous  task. 


xii  PREPACK 

In  a  certain  degree,  indeed,  the  same  remark  applies  to  the  main 
argument  of  the  work ;  for,  in  spite  of  elaborate  attempts  at  mystifica 
tion,  the  real  cause  of  the  war  and  the  real  issue  at  stake  are  every  clay 
forcing  themselves  into  prominence  with  a  distinctness  which  cannot  be 
much  longer  evaded.  Whatever  we  may  think  of  the  tendencies  of 
democratic  institutions,  or  of  the  influence  of  territorial  magnitude  on 
the  American  character,  no  theory  framed  upon  these  or  upon  any  other 
incidents  of  the  contending  parties,  however  ingeniously  constructed, 
will  suffice  to  conceal  the  fact,  that  it  is  slavery  which  is  at  the  bottom 
of  this  quarrel,  and  that  on  its  determination  it  depends  whether  the 
Power  which  derives  its  strength  from  slavery  shall  be  set  up  with 
enlarged  resources  and  increased  prestige,  or  be  now  once  for  all  effectu 
ally  broken.  This  is  the  one  view  of  the  case  which  every  fresh  occur 
rence  in  the  progress  of  events  tends  to  strengthen  ;  and  it  is  this  which 
it  is  the  object  of  the  present  work  to  enforce. 

But,  although  the  development  of  the  movement  may  have  deprived 
the  following  speculations  of  some  of  that  novelty  which  they  might 
have  possessed  when  they  were  first  delivered,  still  it  is  hoped  that  they 
will  not  be  without  their  use — that,  while  they  will  assist  honest  inquir 
ers  to  form  a  sound  judgment  upon  a  question  which  is  still  the  subject 
of  much  designed  and  much  unconscious  misrepresentation,  they  may 
possess  a  more  permanent  interest,  as  illustrating  by  a  striking  example 
the  value  of  a  fruitful  but  little  understood  instrument  of  historical 
inquiry — that  which  investigates  the  influence  of  material  interests  on 
the  destinies  of  mankind. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTORY — TIIE    CASE   STATED. 

Causes  of  the  War. — The  popular  view. — Its  superficiality. — Slavery  the 
central  problem  of  American  history. — The  commercial  theory. — The 
claim  of  independence:  how  to  be  estimated. — Real  cause  of  stcession. — 
True  origin  of  the  war  obscured  by  its  proximate  occasion. — War  the  only 
arbitrament. — Views  of  the  North :  The  Unionist  sentiment ;  The  Anti- 
Slavery  sentiment. — Rapid  growth  of  the  Anti-Slavery  sentiment. — Present 
aspect  of  the  question 17 

/  CHAPTER   H. 

THE    ECONOMIC    BASIS  OF    SLAVERY. 

Different  fortunes  of  slavery  in  the  North  and  South. — Various  explanations 
of  the  phenomenon:  Theory  of  diversity  of  character  in  the  original 
founders ;  Theory  of  climate  and  race  ;  The  explanation  of  climate  inade 
quate;  Alleged  indolence  of  the  negro  groundless. — True  solution  of  the 
problem — Economic. — Merits  and  defects  of  slave  labour. — Merits  and 
defects  of  free  labour. — Comparative  efficiency  of  slave  and  free  labour. — 
Agricultural  capabilities  of  North  and  South. — Slave  and  free  products. — 
Further  conditions  essential  to  the  success  of  slave  labour :  Fertility  of  the 
soil ;  Extent  of  territory. — Exhausting  effects  of  slave  culture. — General 
conclusion 33 

CHAPTER   III. 

INTERNAL   ORGANIZATION    OF  SLAVE   SOCIETIES. 

Economic  success  of  slavery,  in  what  sen-e  conceded, — Structure  of  ajslaye 
societymoulded  by  its  economic,  fipnrlitinns — Agriculture — the  sole  career 
foT^slavery — Exigencies  of  slave  agricultnre."—  Results :  kagaituiiii  of 
plantations;  Indebtedness  of  planters;  Unequal  distribution  oLwealth. — 
Waste  lands  in  slave  countries. — Social  consequences. — The  '  mean 
white?,1 — Industrial  development  of  Slave  States  prematurely  arrested. — 
Net  results  of  slave  industry. — Constitution  of  slave  societies  essentially 
oligarchical. — Baneful  influence  of  the  slave  oligarchy  falsely  charged  on 
democracy. — Each  principle  to  be  tested  by  its  proper  fruits. — Character 
of  the  Slave  Power  .........  46 

CHAPTER   IV. 

TENDENCIES   OF    SLAVE    SOCIETIES. 

In  what  direction  are  slave  societies  moving? — Importance  of  the  question. — 
Presumption  in  favour  of  modern  slavery  derived  from  the  experience  of 
ancient. — Three  circumstances  connected  with  modern  slavery  destroy  the 


XIV 


CONTENTS. 


force  of  the  analogy:  I.  Difference  of  race  and  colour;  Its  effects. 
II.  Growth  of  modern  commerce  ;  Its  effects :  In  enhancing  the  value  of 
crude  labour,  and  thus  augmenting  the  resources  of  slavery  ;  In  supersed 
ing  the  necessity  of  education,  and  thus  perpetuating  servitude ;  Modern 
slavery  extends  its  despotism  to  the  mind.  III.  The  slave  trade  :  Its  two 
fold  functions  in  the  modern  system  :  In  relation  to  the  consuming  coun 
tries;  In  relation  to  the  breeding  countries.  Division  of  labour  between 
the  old  and  new  states  ;  The  slave  trade  securely  founded  in  the  principles 
of  population  ;  The  analogy  of  cattle  breeding  ...  64 

CHAPTER  V. 

INTERNAL   DEVELOPMENT    OF    SLAVE   SOCIETIES. 

Outline  of  the  economy  of  slave  societies.— They  include  no  element  of  pro 
gress. The  mean  whites:  Growth  of  regular  industry  among  them  a 

moral  impossibility;  Consequences  of  the  absence  of  regular  industry; 
Extreme  sparseness  of  population  ;  Incompatibility  of  this  with  civilized 
progress. — The  slaves  and  their  masters. — Prospects  of  emancipation  in 
the  natural  course  of  internal  development :  Inherent  difficulty  of  the 
problem;  Modern  precedents  inapplicable;  Economic  causes  not  to  be 
relied  on;  Political  and  social  motives  the  real  strength  of  American 
slavery ;  Further  support  to  slavery  in  the  ethics  and  theology  of  the 
South.— Growth  of  the  pro-slavery  sentiment. — Its  absorbing  strength.— 
Its  universality. — Hopelessness  of  the  slave's  position. — Social  cost  of  the 
system. — Terrorism  .  .  .  .<.  .  •  »  •  •  T7 

CHAPTER  Vf.— 

EXTERNAL   POLICY    OF   SLAVE   SOCIETIES...,  j 

Its  aggressive  character.— TwofolTI  source  of  the  aggressive  spirit :  The 
industrial;  The  moral. — Tendency  of  slave  society  to  foster  ambition. — 
Narrow  scope  for  its  indulgence. — The  extension  of  slavery — its  only 
resource. — Concentration  of  aim  promoted  by  antagonism. — Position  of 
the  South  in  the  Union,  naturally  inferior  to  that  of  the  North. — Compen 
sating  forces:  The  three  fifths  vote  ;  Superior  capacity  in  the  South  for 
combined  action. — Democratic  alliance :  its  basis. — Terms  of  the  bargain. — 
Twofold  motive  of  southern  aggression. — The  political  motive  mainly  ope 
rative. — True  source  of  this  motive. — Relation  of  the  political  motive  to 
the  federal  position  of  the  South 93 


CHAPTER  YII. 

THE   CAREER    OF    THE    SLAVE    POWER. 

Position  of  slavery  at  the  Revolution. — Rise  of  the  cotton  trade. — Early  pro 
gress  of  the  planters. — Acquisition  of  the  Louisiana  Territory. — Missouri 
claimed  as  a  slave  state. — Motives  to  territorial  aggrandisement. — Import 
ance  of  Missouri. — Opposition  of  the  North. — The  Missouri  Compromise. 
The  Seminole  War. — Designs  upon  Texas. — The  tactics  of  aggression. — 
Views  of  the  annexationists. — Texas  annexed. — Mexican  war  :  division 
of  the  spoil. — State  of  parties  in  1850. — Designs  upon  Kansas. — Obstacle 
presented  by  the  Missouri  Compromise. — The  Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill : 
squatter  sovereignty. — Kansas  thrown  open  for  settlement. — Preparations 
of  the  Slave  Power. — Invasion  of  the  territory. — The  Leavenworth  Cot  - 
stitution. — Atrocities  of  the  Border  Ruffians. — Reaction  :  defeat  of  the 
Slave  Power. — Alarm  in  the  North. — Formation  of  the  Republican  party, 


CONTENTS.  xv 

First  trial  of  strength  of  the  new  party. — Hopeful  prospects. — Southern 
policy  of  "Thorough":  I.  Revival  of  the  African  slave  trade;  Agitation 
for  reopening  the  African  slave  trade ;  Importation  of  slaves  actually  com 
menced.  II.  Perversion  of  the  Constitution;  Claim  of  protection  to  slave 
property  throughout  the  Union;  A  judicial  decision  necessary;  Recon 
struction  of  the  Supreme  Court;  Dred  Scott  Case  ;  Effect  of  the  decision  ; 
Further  requirement — a  reliable  government. — Breach  with  the  Demo 
cratic  party — Secession. — Apology  for  Southern  aggression. — Aggression  of 
the  Slave  Power,  in  what  sense  defensive. — The  apology  admits  the  charge. 
Attempt  of  John  Brown. — Its  place  in  current  history  .  .  •  106 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE    DESIGNS    OF    THE    SLA. YE    POWEB. 

Essential  character  of  Slave  society  unchanged  by  independence. — Inherent 
vices  of  the  Slave  Power  intensified  by  its  new  position. — Possible  condi 
tions  of  independence:  I  Limitation  of  slavery  to  its  present  area;  Re 
sults  of  this  plan.  II.  Territories  opened  alike  to  free  and  slave  coloniza 
tion  ;  Probable  effects.  III.  Equal  partition  of  the  Territories  ;  Argument 
by  which  this  scheme  is  defended  ;  Paradox  involved  in  this  view ;  Geo 
graphical  conditions  ignored ;  Northern  jealousy  not  a  sufficient  safe 
guard  ;  European  intervention  still  less  to  be  relied  on. — Modification  of 
slavery  involved  in  the  success  of  the  South. — Probability  of  a  revival  of 
the  African  Slave  Trade. — Irresistible  inducements. — The  only  counter- 
motive. — Presumption  from  the  past. — Public  spirit  among  the  Southern 
party.—  Sacrifice  of  particular  to  general  interests. — Sectional  resistance 
powerless  before  the  exigencies  of  public  policy. — Results  .  .  132 

CHAPTER  IX. 

OENEEA.L   CONCLUSIONS. 

Duty  of  Europe,  neutrality. — Impolicy  of  intervention. — Obligation  to 
render  moral  support. — Two  modes  of  settlement  equally  to  be  deprecated. 
Practical  issues  at  the  present  time :  I.  Reconstruction  of  the  Union ; 
Subjugation  of  the  South,  how  far  justifiable;  Subjugation  of  the  South, 
how  far  practicable;  Reconstruction  of  the  Union,  how  far  expedient; 
Necessity  of  a  recourse  to  despotic  expedients;  Plan  for  dispensing  with 
despotism  by  reforming  Southern  society  ;  The  condition  of  time  ignored ; 
Disturbing  effects  of  immigration.  II.  Secession  under  conditions:  Two 
cardinal  ends  to  be  kept  in  view ;  Peculiar  position  of  the  Border  States  ; 
Mr.  Lincoln's  proposal,  its  opportuneness;  Free  cultivators  in  the  Border 
States;  Facilities  for  incorporation;  The  line  of  the  Mississippi;  The 
negro  question,  three  conditions  to  be  satisfied. — I.  Immediate  and  whole 
sale  emancipation ;  main  difficulty  of  the  problem ;  The  West  Indian 
experiment;  its  lesson;  Natural  difficulties  enhanced  in  the  South;  Im 
possibility  of  protecting  the  negro;  The  'mean  whites';  their  corrupting 
influence.  II.  Progressive  emancipation :  Advantage  of  dealing  with  the 
evil  in  detail ;  Facilities  offered  by  society  in  the  Border  States ;  Opera 
tion  of  natural  causes  in  the  more  southern  states ;  Prospects  of  the  ulti 
mate  extinction  of  slavery 147 


THE    SLAVE    POWER, 


ITS 


CHARACTER,    CAREER,    AND    DESIGNS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 
THE   CASE   STATED. 

THOSE  who  have  followed  the  discussions  in  this  country  ore 
the  American  contest  are  aware  that  the  view  taken  of  that 
event  by  the  most  influential  organs  of  the  English  press  has,, 
during  the  period  which  has  elapsed  since  its  commencement, 
undergone  considerable  modification.  The  first  announcement 
by  South  Carolina  of  its  intention  to  secede  from  the  Union 
was  received  in  this  country  with  simple  incredulity.  There 
were  no  reasons,  it  was  said,  for  secession.  "What  the  constitu 
tion  and  laws  of  the  United  States  had  been  on,  the  eve  of  Mr. 
Lincoln's  election,  that  they  were  on  its  morrow.  It  was 
absurd  to  suppose  that  one  halt'  of  a  nation  should  separate 
from  the  oJier  because  a  first  magistrate  had  been  elected  in 
the  ordinary  constitutional  course.  The  agitation  for  secession 
was  therefore  pronounced  to  be  a  political  feint  intended  to 
cover  a  real  movement  in  some  other  direction.  But  when  the 
contest  had  passed  beyond  its  first  stages,  when  the  example 
set  by  South  Carolina  was  followed  by  the  principal  States  of 
the  extreme  South  with  a  rapidity  and  decision  shewing  evident 
concert,  when  the  treacherous  seizure  of  Fort  Moultrie  in 
Charleston  harbour  gave  further  significance  to  the  votes  of  the 
conventions,  when  lastly  the  attack  on  Fort  Sumpter  awoke  the 
North,  as  one  man,  to  arms,  belief  in  the  reality  of  the  move 
ment  could  no  longer  be  withheld,  and  speculation  was  directed 
to  the  causes  of  the  catastrophe.  The  theory  at  first  pro 
pounded  was  nearly  to  this  effect.  Commercial  and  fiscal 
differences  were  said  to  be  at  the  bottom  of  the  movement. 

2 


18  CAUSES  OF  TEE  WAR. 

The  North  fancied  she  had  an  interest  in  protection ;  the  South 
had  an  obvious  interest  in  free  trade.  On  this  and  other  ques 
tions  of  less  moment  North  and  South  came  into  collision,  and 
the  antagonism  thus  engendered  had  been  strengthened  and 
exacerbated  by  a  selfish  struggle  for  place  and  power — a 
struggle  which  the  constitution  and  political  usages  of  the 
Americans  rendered  more  rancorous  and  violent  than  else 
where.  But  in  the  interests  of  the  two  sections,  considered 
calmly  and  apart  from  selfish  ends,  there  was  nothing,  it  was 
said,  which  did  not  admit  of  easy  adjustment,  nothing  which 
negotiation  was  not  far  more  competent  to  deal  with  than  the 
sword.  As  for  slavery,  it  was  little  more  than  a  pretext  on 
both  sides,  employed  by  the  leaders  of  the  South  to  arouse  the 
fears  and  hopes  of  the  slaveholders,  and  by  the  North  in  the 
hope  of  attracting  the  sympathies  of  Europe  and  hallowing  a 
cause  which  was  essentially  destitute  of  noble  aims.  The  civil 
war  was  thus  described  as  having  sprung  from  narrow  and 
selfish  views  of  sectional  interests  (in  which,  however,  the 
claims  of  the  South  were  coincident  with  justice  and  sound 
policy),  and  sustained  by  passions  which  itself  had  kindled  ; 
and  the  combatants  were  advised  to  compose  their  differences, 
and  either  return  to  their  political  partnership,  or  agree  to 
separate  and  learn  to  live  in  harmony  as  independent 
allies. 

With  the  progress  of  events  these  views  have  undergone 
some  change,  principally  in  excluding  more  completely  than 
at  first  from  the  supposed  causes  of  the  movement  the  question 
of  slavery,  and  in  bringing  more  prominently  into  view  the 
right  of  nations  to  decide  on  their  own  form  of  political  exist 
ence  as  identified  with  the  cause  of  the  South.  "  The  watch 
word  of  the  South,"  said  the  Times  f  "  is  Independence,  of 
the  North  Union,  and  in  these  two  war-cries  the  real  issue  is 
contained." 

That  there  is  much  plausibility  in  this  view  of  the  American 
crisis  for  those  who  have  no  more  knowledge  of  American 
history  than  is  possessed  by  the  bulk  of  educated  men  in  this 
country  needs  not  be  denied.  Superficial  appearances,  perhaps 
we  should  say  the  facts  most  immediately  prominent,  give  it 
some  support.  The  occasion  on  which  secession  was  vpro- 
clainied  was  the  election  of  a  Republican  President,  who,  far 
from  being  the  uncompromising  champion  of  abolition,  had 
declared  himself  ready  to  maintain  the  existing  regime  of 
slavery  with  the  whole  power  of  the  Federal  government.  On 
the  retirement  of  the  Southern  representatives  and  senators 

*  September  19,  1861. 


THE  POPULAR  VIEW.  19 

from  Congress,  the  Republican  par^^^^^wae  supreme  in  the 
legislature  ;  and  in  what  way  o^lpl^^^miploy  this  suddenly 
acquired  power  \  In  passing  a  law  for  the  abolition  of  slavery 
in  the  Union?  or  even  in  repealing  the  odious  Fugitive  Slave 
Law  ?  Nothing  of  the  kind  ;  but  in  passing  the  Morrill  Tariff 
— in  enacting  a  measure  by  which  they  designed  to  aggrandize 
the  commercial  population  of  the  North  at  the  expense  of  the 
South. 

Since  the  breaking  out  of  hostilities,  again,  some  of  the  most 
salient  acts  of  the  drama  have  only  tended  to  confirm  the  view 
which  these  occurrences  would  suggest.  When  slaves  have 
escaped  to  the  Federal  army,  instead  of  being  received  by  the 
general  with  open  arms  as  brothers  for  whose  freedom  he  is 
fighting,  they  have  been  placed  upon  the  footing  of  property, 
and  declared  to  be  contraband  of  war.  When  a  Federalist 
general,  transcending  his  legitimate  powers,  issues  a  proclama 
tion  declaring  that  slaves  shall  be  free,  it  is  not  a  proclamation 
of  freedom  to  slaves  as  such,  but  only  to  the  slaves  of  "  rebels," 
while  no  sooner  is  this  halt-hearted  act  of  manumission  known 
at  head-quarters  than  it  is  disavowed  and  over-ruled. 

All  this,  and  more  to  the  same  purpose,  may  be  urged,  as  it 
has  been  urged,  in  favour  of  the  view  of  the  American  crisis 
taken  by  some  leading  organs  of  the  English  press  ;  yet  I  ven 
ture  to  say  that  never  was  an  historical  theory  raised  on  a  more 
fragile  foundation  ;  never  was  an  explanation  of  a  political 
catastrophe  propounded  in  more  daring  defiance  of  all  the  great 
and  cardinal  realities  of  the  case  with  which  it  professed  to 
deal. 

One  is  tempted  to  ask,  whether  those  who  thus  expound 
American  politics  suppose  the  present  crisis  to  be  an  isolated 
phenomenon  in  American  history,  disconnected  from  all  the 
past ;  or,  to  look  at  the  question  from  another  point  of  view, 
whether  they  imagine  that  the  coincidence  of  the  political 
division  of  parties  with  the  geographical  division  of  slave  and 
free  States  is  an  accident — that,  to  borrow  the  expression  of 
Jefferson,  "  a  geographical  line  coinciding  with  a  marked  prin 
ciple  "  has  no  significance.  It  seems  almost  trifling  with  the 
reader  to  remind  him  that  the  present  outbreak  is  but  the 
crowning  result,  the  inevitable  climax  of  the  whole  past  his 
tory  of  American  politics — the  catastrophe  foreseen  with  more 
or  less  distinctness  by  all  the  leading  statesmen  of  America 
from  Washington  to  Webster  and  Clay,  which  was  the  constant 
theme  of  their  forebodings,  and  to  escape  or  defer  which  was 
the  great  problem  of  their  political  lives.  And  equally  super 
fluous  does  it  seem  to  mention  what  was  the  grand  central 
question  in  that  history — the  question  to  which  all  others  were 


20  SLAVERY  THE  CENTRAL  PROBLEM 

subordinate,  and  im^^diich  a^  political  divisions  ranged 
themselves.* 

*  In  opposition  to  the  views  propounded  by  the  most  influential  organs  in  Eng 
land,  and  in  support  pf  what  I  may  venture  to  call  the  obvious  (though  little 
recognized)  account  of  the  war,  I  am  glad  to  be  able  to  quote  the  high  authority  of 
two  leading  French  Reviews,  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  and  the  Revue  Nation- 
ale  ;— 

"  II  faut  aimer  a  discuter  contre  1'evidence  pour  se  persuader  que  la  question  de 
1'esclavage  n'est  point  la  cause  principale  de  la  crise  actuelle.  Dans  ce  conflit  qui 
depuis  trente  ans  va  toujours  en  s'aggravant  et  qui  vient  enfin  d'aboutir  a  la  guerre 
civile,  quelle  question  va  toujours  en  grandissant  et  finit  par  dominer  toute  le  reste, 
sinon  cette  redoubtable  question  d'esclavage  ?  Us  n'ont  pas  lu  les  discours  de  Cal- 
houn,  de  Webster,  de  Seward,  de  Douglas,  de  Clay,  de  Sumner,  ceux  qui  croient 
que  la  question  de  1'esclavage  n'a  dans  la  politique  americaine  qu'une  importance 
secondaire.  Us  oublient  que  toute  la  Virginie  s'est  levee  en  armes  contre  John 
Brown  et  ces  vingt-cinq  compagrions.  Voici  un  fait  d'ailleurs:  quels  sont  bell  ige- 
rans?  D'un  cote  les  etats  sans  esclaves,  de  1'autre  les  etats  a  esclaves,  et  Ton 
pretendrait  que  la  question  de  1'esclavage  est  etrangere  a  la  guerre !  Entre  les 
etats  du  nord  et  ceux  du  sud  il  y  a  des  etats  frontieres,  les  border  states,  qui,  sans 
etre  des  etats  libres,  contiennent  moins  d'esclaves  que  les  etats  cotonniers.  Chose 
et  range !  la  fidelite  de  ces  etats  a  1'Union  est  precise'ment  en  raison  inverse  du  nom- 
bre  de  possesseurs  d'esclaves ;  la  Virginie,  qui  a  des  esclaves  se  rallie  au  mouvement 
secessioniste ;  la  partie  occidentale  de  cet  etat,  oasis  sans  esclaves,  separee  du  reste 
par  une  chaine  des  Alleghanys,  reste  fidele  a  1'Union  et  lui  donne  des  soldats.  Le 
nord  du  Delaware,  qui  n'a  plus  d'esclares,  renferrne  a  peiue  un  secessioniste ;  le  sud, 
qui  en  a  un  grand  nombre,  contient  beaucoup  d'adversaires  de  1'Union.  Le  sud  et 
Test  du  Maryland  sont  remplis  d'esclaves,  et  en  consequence  de  secessionistes; 
1'ouest  du  Maryland,  oil  Ton  voit  tres  peu  de  noirs  non  affranehis,  est  presque  una- 
nime  pour  1'Union.  Les  six  mille  esclaves  de  Baltimore  appartiennent  a  1'aristocratio 
de  cette  ville,  et  Ton  sait  que  cette  aristocratie  n'est  retenue  dans  la  obeissance  que 
par  des  mesures  de  rigueur.  Le  Tennessee  occidental,  abandonne  au  travail  ser 
vile,  est  un  centre  de  rebellion ;  le  Tennessee  oriental,  ou  le  travail  libre  1'emporte 
de  beaucoup,  est  sympathique  a  1'Union.  Le  Kentucky  ne  fait  pas  exception  a  cet 
regie :  dans  les  comtes  du  nord  et  de  Test,  ou  il  y  a  peu  d'esclaves,  il  y  a  peu  de 
secessionistes ;  dans  les  autres,  ou  ils  sont  nombreux,  on  se  prononce  pour  la  '  neu- 
tralite,'  ce  qui  n'est  qu'une  forme  da  la  trahison.  Dans  le  Missouri,  la  ligne  de* 
demarcation  est  nettement  etablie  entre  le  travail  libre  et  le  travail  servile.  Les 
Allernands  detestent  1'esclavage,  et  forment  le  noyau  le  plus  fidele  de  1'etat ;  les 
unionistes  anglo-saxons  sont  plutot  en  faveur  de  la  neutralite,  tandis  quo  les  maitres 
d'esclaves  sont  en  armes  contre  1'Union.  II  y  a  quelques  sympathies  pour  1'Union 
jusque  dans  le  Texas  occidental,  parce  qu'on  y  voit  peu  d'esclaves  et  beauooup 
d'Allemnmls.  Quel  est  1'etat  secessioniste  par  excellence?  C'est  la,  Caroline  du 
sud,  qui  contient  relativement  plus  d'esclaves  que  tous  les  autres  etats.  Dira-t-on 
encore  que  le  defense  de  1'esclavage  n'est  pas  la  cause  des  secessionistes  ?  S'il  resta 
des  doutes  dans  quelques  esprits,  qu'on  ecoute  done  le  propre  temoignage  des  gens 
du  sud." — Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  ire  Nov.  1861. 

In  an  article  by  M.  Pressense,  in  the  Revue  Nationale,  the  point  is  put  with  equal 
perspicuity  and  force : — "  Je  sais  qu'on  s'efforce  d'en  dissimuler  la  gravite,  et 
que  d'uu  certain  cote  on  essaye  de  la  reduire  a  un  simple  conflit  constitutionnel,  a 
une  question  de  droit  politique,  a  Interpretation  du  contrat  que  lie  entre  eux  les 
divers  Etats  de  la  confederation  puissante  dont  les  gigantesques  progres  etonnaient 
naguere  le  monde.  Mais  cette  explication  mesquine  do  la  crise  actuelle  de  1'Ame- 
rique  du  Nord  n'est  qu'un  sophisme  destine  a  excuser  une  lachete.  On  essaye 
de  donner  ainsi  la  change  a  la  conscience  publique,  qui  ne  comprendrait  pas 
et  ne  permettrait  pas  que  Ton  hesitat  en  Europe  entre  le  Nord  et  le  Sud,  une 
fois  que  la  question  de  1'esclavage  serai t  nettement  posee  entre  eux.  Ceux  qui 
trouvent  leur  interet  a  incliner  vers  le  Sud  se  plaisent  a  rabaisser  le  conflit  americaiu 


OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY.  21 

Never  surely  was  the  unity  of  a  natim^^^lrama  better  pre 
served.  From  the  year  1819  d^pPMB^^  present  time  the 
history  of  the  United  States  has  been  one  record  of  aggressions 
by  the  Slave  Power,  feebly,  and  almost  always  unsuccessfully, 
resisted  by  the  Northern  States,  and  culminating  in  the  present 
war.  At  the  time  of  the  revolution,  as  is  well  known,  slavery 
was  regarded  by  all  the  great  founders  of  the  Republic,  whe 
ther  Northern  or  Southern  men,  as  essentially  an  immoral 
system  :  it  was,  indeed,  recognized  by  the  Constitution,  but 
only  as  an  exceptional  practice,  a  local  and  temporary  fact. 
In  the  unsettled  territory  then  belonging  to  the  Union  it  was 
by  a  special  ordinance  prohibited.  Even  in  1819,  although  in 
the  interval  the  Slave  Power  had  pushed  its  dominion  and 
pretensions  far  beyond  their  original  limits,  the  claim  was 
scarcely  advanced  for  slavery  to  rank  as  an  equal  with  free 
institutions  in  any  district  where  it  was  not  already  definitively 
established,  and  certainly  no  such  claim  was  acknowledged. 
Of  this  the  Missouri  Compromise  affords  the  clearest  proof, 
since,  regarded  as  a  triumph  by  the  slaveowners,  it  only  secured 
the  admission  of  slavery  to  Missouri  on  the  express  condition 
that  it  should  be  confined  for  the  future  to  the  territory  south 
of  a  certain  parallel  of  latitude.  But  what  has  been  the 
career  of  the  Slave  Power  since  that  time?  It  is  to  be  traced 
through  eve'ry  questionable  transaction  in  foreign  and  domestic 
politics  in  which  the  United  States  has  since  taken  part — 
through  the  Seminole  war,  through  the  annexation  of  Texas, 
through  the  Mexican  war,  through  filibustering  expeditions 
under  Walker,  through  attempts  upon  Cuba,  through  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law  of  1850,  thr'ough  Mr.  Clay's  compromises, 
through  the  repudiation  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  so  soon  as 
the  full  results  of  that  bargain  had  been  reaped,  through  the 
passing  of  the  Nebraska  Bill  and  the  legislative  establishment 
of  the  principle  of  "  Squatter  Sovereignty,"  through  the  inva 
sion  of  Kansas,  through  the  repudiation  of  "  Squatter  Sove 
reignty"  when  that  principle  had  been  found  unequal  to  its 
purposes,  and  lastly,  through  the  Dred-Scott  decision  and  the 
demand  for  protection  of  slavery  in  the  Territories — pretensions 
which,  if  admitted,  would  have  converted  the  whole  Union,  the 
Free  States  no  less  than  the  Territories,  into  one  great  domain 
for  slavery.  This  has  been  the  point  at  which  the  Slave 


a  des  proportions  miserables  qui  mettent  la  conscience  hors  de  cause ;  mais  cela  est 
moins  facile  que  cela  ne  semble  commode,  et  ils  ont  beau  faire,  la  vraie  situation  se 
dessine  toujours  mieux." 

The  same  view  is  sustained  by  Le  Comte  Agenor  De  Gasparin  with  remarkable 
eloquence  in  his  work,   '  Un  Grand  Ptuple  qui  se  rdcve.'1 


22  THE  COMMERCIAL  THEORY. 

Power,  after  a  ser^s^^uccessful  aggressions,  carried  on  during 
forty  years,  has  a^MPI|^^ved.  It  was  on  this  last  demand 
that  the  Democrats  of  the^rorth  broke  off  from  their  Southern 
allies — a  defection  which  gave  their  victory  to  the  Republicans, 
and  directly  produced  the  civil* war.  And  now  we  are  asked 
to  believe  that  slavery  has  no  vital  connexion  with  this  quarrel, 
but  that  the  catastrophe  is  due  to  quite  other  causes — to 
incompatibility  of  commercial  interests,  to  uncongeniality  of 
social  tastes,  to  a  desire  for  independence,  to  anything  but 
slavery. 

But  we  are  told  that  in  this  long  career  of  aggression  the 
extension  of  slavery  has  only  been  employed  by  the  South  as  a 
means  to  an  end,  and  that  it  is  in  this  end  we  are  to  look  for 
the  key  to  the  present  movement.  "  Slavery,"  it  seems,  u  is 
but  a  surface  question  in  American  politics."*  The  seeming 
aggressions  were  in  reality  defensive  movements  forced  upon 
the  South  by  the  growing  preponderance  of  the  Free  States; 
and  its  real  object,  as  well  in  its  former  career  of  annexation 
and  conquest,  as  in  its  present  efforts  to  achieve  independence, 
has  been  constantly  the  same — to  avoid  being  made  the  victim 
of  Yankee  rapacity,  to  secure  for  itself  the  development  of  its 
own  resources  unhindered  by  protective  laws.f 

Let  us  briefly  examine  this  theory  of  the  secession  move 
ment.  And,  first,  if  free  trade  be  the  object  of  the  South,  why, 
we  may  ask,  has  it  not  employed  its  power  to  accomplish  this 
object  during  its  long  period  of  predominance  in  the  Union? 
It  has  been  powerful  enough  to  pass  and  repeal  the  Missouri 
Compromise,  to  annex  Texas,  to  spend  40,000,000  dollars  of 
Federal  money  in  a  war  for  the  recapture  of  slaves,  to  pass  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law,  to  obtain  the  Dred  Scott  decision :  if  it 
has  been  able  to  accomplish  these  results,  to  lead  the  North 
into  foreign  complications  in  which  it  had  no  interest,  and  to 
force  upon  it  measures  to  which  it  was  strongly  averse,  is  it  to 
be  supposed  that  it  could  not,  had  it  so  desired  it,  have  carried 
a  free  trade  tariff?  Yet  not  only  has  the  South  not  attempted 
this  during  its  long  reign,  it  has  even  co-operated  effectively  in 
the  passing  of  protective  measures — nay,  these  enthusiastic  free 
traders  have  not  hesitated,  *when  the  opportunity  ottered,  to 
profit  by  protective  measures.  With  the  exception  of  the  Mor- 
rill  tariff,  Congress  never  passed  a  more  highly  protective  law 
than  the  tariff  of  1842  ;  and  this  tariff  was  supported  by  a  large 
number  of  Southern  statesmen ;  and,  not  only  so,  but  gave 
effective  protection  to  Southern  products — to  the  sugar  of 

*  Saturday  Review,  Nov.  9,  1861. 

f  Mr.  Yancey's  letter  to  the  Daily  News,  January  25,  1862. 


THE  COMMERCIAL  THEO&Y.  23 

Louisiana,  the  hemp  of  Kentucky,  and  the  lead  of  Missouri,  as 
well  as  to  the  manufactures  of  New  England. 

Agdin,  if  free  trade  be  the  real  object  of  the  South,  how  does 
it  happen  that,  having  submitted  to  the  tariffs  of  1832,*  1842, 
and  1846,  it  should  have  resorted  to  the  extreme  measure  of 
secession  while  under  the  tariff  of  1857 — a  comparatively  free- 
trade  law  ?  From  1842  down  to  1860  the  tendency  of  Federal 
legislation  was  distinctly  in  the  direction  of  free  trade.  The 
most  liberal  tariff  the  Union  ever  enjoyed  since  1816  was  the 
tariff  of  1857,  and  it  was  while  this  tariff  was  in  force  that  the 
plot  of  secession  was  hatched,  matured,  and  carried  into  opera 
tion.  But  there  are  some  who  would  have  us  believe  that  it 
was  the  Merrill  Tariff  which  produced  the  revolt ;  and  this  is  the 
most  incomprehensible  portion  of  the  whole  case  ;  since  there 
is  nothing  more  certain  than  that  secession  had  been  resolved 
upon,  and  the  plot  for  its  accomplishment  traitorously  prepared, 
before  the  Morrill  tariff  was  brought  forward,  and  even  before 
the  bargain  with  Pennsylvania  was  struck,  in  fulfilment  of 
which  it  was  introduced.  It  is  indeed  well  known  that  it  was 
the  absence  from  Congress  of  the  Southern  senators  while  car 
rying  out  the  programme  of  secession,  which  alone  rendered 
possible  the  passing  of  this  measure.  If  free  trade  were  the 
grand  object  of  the  South,  why  did  its  senators  withdraw  from 
their  posts  precisely  at  the  time  when  their  presence  was  most 
required  to  secure  their  cherished  principle  ?  Nay,  if  this  was 
their  game,  why  did  they  not  apply  to  Mr.  Buchanan  to  veto 
the  Bill — Mr.  Buchanan,  the  creature  and  humble  tool  of  the 
Slave  Party  ?  We  are  asked  by  this  theory  to  believe  that  the 
South  has  had  recourse  to  civil  war,  has  incurred  the  risk  of 
political  annihilation,  to  accomplish  an  object  for  the  effectual 
attainment  of  which  its  ordinary  constitutional  opportunities 
afforded  ample  means.f 

But  the  difficulties  of  this  theory  do  not  end  here.     If  the 


*  I  say,  "having  submitted  to  the  tariff  of  1832,"  because,  although  it  is  true 
that  South  Carolina  threatened  to  rise  in  rebellion  against  this  measure,  she  stood 
alone  in  her  projected  revolt.  Far  from  receiving  any  general  sympathy  in  the 
South,  it  was  through  the  instrumentality  of  a  Southern  State  (Virginia),  employed 
by  a  Southern  President  (Jackson),  that  the  threatened  movement  was  suppressed. 

f  The  writer  in  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  from  whom  I  have  already  quoted, 
suggests  (pp.  156-157)  that  the  conduct  of  the  Southern  senators  in  permitting  the 
passing  of  the  Morrill  tariff  was  deliberately  contrived  with  a  view  to  make  political 
capital  out  of  the  sentiments  which  they  calculated  on  its  exciting  in  England — an 
explanation  which  is  countenanced  by  the  foct  that  Mr.  Toombs,  representative  of 
Georgia,  who  now  holds  a  command  in  the  army  of  Jefferson  Davis,  was  in  the- 
Senate  when  the  Morrill  tariff  was  submitted  to  that  assembly,  and  voted  for  the 
new  law.  If  this  was  their  object,  never  was  plot  more  skilfully  contrived  or  more, 
successful 


24  SEAL  CAUSE  OF  SECESSION 

secession  movement  be  a  revolt  against  protective  tariffs,  why 
is  it  confined  to  the  Southern  States  ?  The  interest  of  the  Cotton 
States  in  free  exchange  with  foreign  countries  is  not  inore 
obvious  than  that  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  and  Wisconsin. 
No  class  in  these  States  has  anything  to  gain  by  protective 
measures:  nothing  is  produced  in  them  which  is  endangered 
by  the  freest  competition  with  the  rest  of  the  world  :  an  artifi 
cial  enhancement  of  European  manufactures  is  to  them  as  pure 
an  injury  as  it  is  to  South  Carolina  and  Alabama :  yet  all  these 
States  are  ranged  on  the  side  of  the  North  in  this  contest,  and 
resolute  for  the  suppression  of  the  revolt. 

It  is,  however,  by  the  watchword  of  "  independence,"  still 
more  than  by  that  of  free  trade,  that  the  partisans  of  the  South 
in  this  country  have  sought  to  enlist  our  sympathies  in  favour 
of  that  cause.  We  are  told  of  the  naturalness,  the  universality, 
the  strength  of  the  desire  for  self-government.  We  are  reminded 
of  the  peculiar  power  of  this  passion  among  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race.  The  act  of  the  original  thirteen  States  in  severing  their 
connexion  with  the  mother  country  is  dwelt  upon ;  and  we  are 
asked  why  the  South  should  not  also  be  permitted  to  determine 
for  itself  the  mode  of  its  political  existence?  "It  threatens 
none,  demands  nothing,  attacks  no  one,  but  wishes  to  rule  itself, 
and  desires  to  be  '  let  alone  :' "  why  should  this  favour  be  denied 
it?  Now  let  it  at  once  be  conceded  that  the  right  to  an  inde 
pendent  political  existence  is  the  most  sacred  right  of  nations : 
still  even  this  right  must  justify  itself  by  reference  to  the  ends 
for  which  it  is  employed.  The  demand  of  a  robber  or  mur 
derer  for  "  independence  "  is  not  a  claim  which  we  are  accus 
tomed  to  respect ;  and  it  does  not  appear  how  our  obligations 
are  altered  if  the  demand  proceed  from  a  robber  or  murderer 
nation — if  national  independence  be  sought  solely  and  exclu 
sively  as  a  means  of  carrying  out  designs  which  are  nothing 
less  than  robbery  and  murder  on  a  gigantic  scale.  I  am  assum 
ing  that  these  crimes  are  involved  in  the  extension  of  slavery, 
and  that  the  extension  of  slavery  is  the  end  for  which  the 
.Southern  Confederacy  has  engaged  in  the  present  war.  These 
.assumptions  I  hope  to  make  good  hereafter;  but  meanwhile,  it 
may  be  asked,  if  the  extension  of  the  domain  of  slavery  be  not 
the  object  for  which  the  South  seeks  independence,  what  is  that 
object?  Let  those  who  have  undertaken  the  defence  of  that 
body  explain  to  us  in  what  way  the  legitimate  development  of 
the  Southern  States,  within  their  proper  limits,  was  hindered 
'by  Federal  restraints?  If  they  had  grievances  to  complain  of 
why  did  they  not  let  the  world  know  them  ?  Why  did  they 
resist  all  the  efforts  of  the  Northern  States  to  extract  from  them 
&  categorical  state;  iivnt  of  what  they  sought?  "  That,"  says  an 


REAL  CAUSE  OF  SECESSION.  25 

able  writer,  "was  precisely  what  it  was  impossible  to  ob'ain  from 
the  representatives  and  senators  of  the  extreme  South.  They 
steadily  refused  to  make  known,  even  under  the  form  of  an  ulti 
matum,  the  conditions  on  which  they  would  consent  to  remain  in 
the  Union.  Their  invariable  response  was  '  it  was  too  late;  their 
constituents  would  acquiesce  in  no  arrangement.'  "*  Before 
then  we  allow  ourselves  to  be  carried  away  by  the  cry  of  the 
South  for  independence,  it  is  material  to  ascertain  the  purpose 
for  which  independence  is  desired.  It  is  important  to  distin 
guish  between  (to  quote  the  words  of  the  eminent  man  whose 
name  has  been  prefixed  to  this  volume)  "  the  right  to  rebel  in 
defence  of  the  power  to  tyrannize,"  and  u  the  right  to  resist  by 
arms  a  tyranny  practised  over  ourselves." 

The  causes  and  character  of  the  American  contest  are  not 
for  Englishmen  questions  of  merely  speculative  interest.  On 
the  view  which  we  take  of  this  great  political  crisis  will  depend, 
not  alone  our  present  attitude  towards  the  contending  parties, 
but  in  no  small  degree  our  future  relations  with  a  people  of  our 
own  race,  religion,  and  tongue,  to  whom  has  been  committed 
the  task,  under  ^whatever  permanent  form  of  polity,  to  carry 
forward  in  the  other  hemisphere  the  torch  of  knowledge  and 
of  civilization.  AVe  may,  according  as  we  act  from  sound  know 
ledge  of  the  real  issues  which  are  at  stake  or  in  ignorance  of 
them,  do  much  to  promote  or  to  defeat  important  human  inte 
rests  bound  up  with  the  present  contest,  and  to  increase  or  to 
diminish  the  future  influence  for  good  of  this  country.  It  would 
indeed  be  a  grievous  misfortune  if,  in  one  of  the  great  turning 
points  of  human  history,  Great  Britain  were  found  to  act  a  part 
unworthy  of  the  position  which  she  occupies  and  of  the  glorious 
traditions  which  she  inherits. 

The  present  essay  is  intended  as  a  contribution  towards  the 
diffusion  of  sound  ideas  upon  this  subject.  The  real  and  suffi 
cient  cause  of  the  present  positio.ii  of  affairs  in  North  America 
appears  to  the  writer  to  lie  in  the  character  of  the  Slave  Power 
— that  system  of  interests,  industrial,  social,  and  political,  which 
has  for  the  greater  part  of  half  a  century  directed  the  career 
of  the  American  Union,  and  which  now,  embodied  in  the 
Southern  Confederation,  seeks  admission  as  an  equal  member 
into  the  community  of  civilized  nations.  In  the  following 
pages  an  attempt  will  be  made  to  resolve  this  system  into  its 
component  elements,  to  trace  the  connexion  of  the  several 
parts  with  each  other,  and  of  the  whole  with  the  foundation  on 
which  it  rests,  and  to  estimate  generally  the  prospects  which 
it  holds  out  to  the  people  who  compose  it,  as  well  as  the  influ- 

*  Annuaire  des  Deux  Mondes  (I860),  p.  618. 


26  TRUE-  ORIGIN  OF  THE  WAR 

ence  it  is  likely  to  exercise  on  the  interests  of  other  nations ; 
and,  if  I  do  not  greatly  mistake  the  purport  of  the  considera 
tions  which  shall  be  adduced,  their  effect  will  be  to  show  that 
this  Slave  Power  constitutes  the  most  formidable  antagonist  to 
civilized  progress  which  has  appeared  for  many  centuries, 
representing  a  system  of  society  at  once  retrograde  .and  aggres 
sive,  a  system  which,  containing  within  it  no  germs  from  which 
improvement  can-  spring,  gravitates  inevitably  towards  barba 
rism,  while  it  is  impelled  by  exigencies,  inherent  in  its  position 
and  circumstances,  to  a  constant  extension  of  its  territorial 
domain.  The  vastness  of  the  interests  at  stake  in  the  American 
contest,  regarded  under  this  aspect,  appears  to  me  to  be  very 
inadequately  conceived  in  this  country;  and  the  purpose  of  the 
present  work  is  to  bring  forward  this  view  of  the  case  more 
prominently  than  has  yet  been  done. 

But  it  is  necessary  here  to  guard  against  a  misapprehension. 
The  view  that  the  true  cause  of  the  American  contest  is  to  be 
found  in  the  character  and  aims  of  the  Slave  Power,  though  it 
connects  the  war  ultimately  with  slavery  as  its  radical  cause, 
by  no  means  involves  the  supposition  that  the  motive  of  the 
North  in  taking  up  arms  lias  been  the  abolition  of  slavery.- 
Such  certainly  has  not  been  its  motive,  and,  if  we  keep  in  view 
its  position  as  identified  with  legal  government  and   constitu 
tional  rights  in  the  United  States,  we  shall  see  that  this  motive, 
even  had  it  existed,  could  scarcely,  at  least  in  the  outset,  have 
been  allowed  to  operate.     Let  us  recall  for  a  moment  the  mode 
in  which  the  crisis  developed  itself.     It  must  be  remembered — 
what  seems  now  almost  to    be   forgotten — that   the  war  was 
commenced  by  the  South — commenced  for  no  other    reason? 
on   no   other   pretext,    than    because   a   republican    president 
was   elected   in   the   ordinary    constitutional    course.      If    we 
ask  why  this  was  made  the  ground  for  revolt,  I  believe  the 
true   answer,    as   I    have   just   intimated,  is  to  be   found   in 
the  aims  of  the  Slave  Power, — aims  which  were  inconsistent 
with   its  remaining  in  the  Union  while  the  Government  was 
carried   on    upon   the   principle   of  restricting   the   extension 
of  its  domain.     So  long  as  it  was  itself  the  dominant   party, 
so  long  as  it  could  employ  the  powers  of  the  Government  in  pro 
pagating  its  peculiar  institution  and  consolidating  its  strength,  so 
long  it   was   content  to   remain   in  the  Union ;  but  from   the 
moment  when,  by  the  constitutional  triumph  of  the  Republi 
cans,  the  government  passed  into  the  hands  of  a  party  whose 
distinctive  principle  was  to  impose  a  limit  on  the  further  exten 
sion  of  shivery,  from  that  moment  itvs  continuance  in  the  Union 
was  incompatible    with    its   essential    objects,   and    from    that 
moment  the  Slave  Power  resolved  to  break  loose  from  Federal 


OBSCURED  BY  ITS  PROXIMATE  OCCASION.  27 

ties.  The  war  bad  thus  its  origin  in  slavery  :  nevertheless  the 
proximate  issue  with  which  the  North  had  to  deal  was  not  sla 
very,  butjhe  right  of  secession.  For  the  constitution  having 
recognized  slavery'within  the  particular  states,  so  long  as  the 
South  confined  its  proceedings  within  its  own  limits,  the 
Government  which  represented  the  constitution  could  take  no 
cognizance  of  its  acts.  The  first  departure  from  constitutional 
usage  by  the  South  was  the  act  of  secession,*  and  it  was  on  the 
question,  therefore,  of  the  right  to  adopt  this  course  that  the 
North  was  compelled  to  join  issue. 

The  contest  thus  springing  from  slavery,  and  involving,  as 
will  be  shewn,  consequences  of  the  most  momentous  kind  in 
connexion  with  the  future  well-being  of  the  human  race  in 
North  America,  wore  the  appearance,  to  persons  regarding  it 
from  the  outside,  of  a  struggle  upon  a  point  of  technical  con 
struction—a  question  of  law  which  it  was  sought  to  decide  by 
an  appeal  to  arms.  It  was  not  unnatural,  then,  that  the  people 
of  this  country,  who  had  but  slight  acquaintance  with  the 
antecedents  of  the  contest  or  with  the  facts  of  the  case,  should 
wholly  misconceive  the  true  nature  of  the  issues  at  stake,  and, 
disconnected  as  the  quarrel  seemed  to  have  become  from  the 
question  of  slavery,  should  allow  their  sympathies,  which  had 
originally  gone  with  the  North,  to  be  carried,  under  the  skilful 
management  of  Southern  agency  acting  through  the  Press 
of  this  country, f  round  to  the  Southern  side.  Nevertheless, 
had  the  case  of  the  North,  regarded  even  from  this  point 
of  view,  been  fairly  put  before  the  English  people,  it  is  diffi 
cult  to  believe  that  it  would  not  have  been  recognized 


• 

*  I  am  aware  that  this  has  been  denied  by  some  English  advocates  of  the  South, 
in  their  zeal  for  the  cause  more  Southern  than  the  Southerners ;  no  less  an  authority 
than  Mr.  Buchanan — though  not  a  Southerner,  the  elect  of  the  South — having 
declared  that  secession  was  unconstitutional.  It  would  be  foreign  to  my  purpose 
here  to  enter  into  an  argument  on  the  constitutional  question.  I  will  therefore  only 
say  that  after  having  carefully  studied,  so  far  as  I  know,  all  that  has  been  written 
on  both  sides  by  competent  persons,  I  have  been  quite  unable  to  discover  any  other 
ground  on  which  the  claim  of  secession  can  be  placed  than  that  ultimate  one — the 
right  which  in  the  last  resort  appertains  to  all  people  to  determine  for  themselves 
their  own  form  of  government.  How  far  the  case  of  the  South  will  stand  the  test 
when  tried  by  this  principle,  I  have  intimated  my  opinion  in  the  text. 

f  See  a  very  remarkable  communication  extracted  from  the  Richmond  Inquirer  of 
December  20th,  1861  and  published  in  the  Daily  News  of  the  17th  February,  1862, 
in  which  the  writer,  who  had  just  returned  to  the  South  from  a  mission  to  London, 
iu  which  he  was  associated  with  Messrs.  Yancey  and  Mann,  describes  the  state  in 
which  he  found  English  opinion  on  American  subjects  on  his  arrival  here  in  July, 
1861,  atd  the  influences  brought  to  bear  by  himself  and  his  associates  upon  the 
members  of  the  London  Press,  with  a  view  to  advancing  the  Southern  cause  with 
he  English  public.  The  document  affords  such  an  insight  into  the  causes  which 


28  WAR  THE  ONLY  ARBITRAMENT. 

as  founded,  at  least  in  its  first  phase,  in  reason  and  justice. 
When  the  South  forced  on  a  contest  by  attacking  the  Federal 
forts,  what  was  Mr.  Lincoln  to  do  ?  Before  acquiescing  in  its 


have  been  acting  upon  public  opinion  in  England  during  the  last  year,  that  it  will 
be  well  to  quote  a  few  extracts.  After  stating  the  general  expectation  which  pre 
vailed  in  the  South  when  he  left  it  in  June  last,  "  that  the  manufacturing  necessities 
of  England  and  France  would  force  them  to  a  speedy  recognition  and  interference 
with  the  Federal  blockade ;  and  "the  equally  confident  impression  that  the  com 
mercial  enterprise  of  England  would  spring  at  once  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  high 
prices  the  blockade  established,  by  sending  forward  cargoes  of  arms,  ammunition, 
medicines,  and  other  stores  most  needed  in  the  Confederacy  ;"  and  after  describing 
the  causes  in  the  public  opinion  of  England  which  prevented  these  hopes  being  real 
ized,  the  writer  proceeds  as  follows: — "  I  have  thus  endeavoured,  in  this  most  hur 
ried  and  imperfect  manner,  to  sketch  some  of  the  difficulties  which  met  our  commis 
sioners  on  the  very  threshold  of  their  mission.  That  they  have  addressed  them 
selves  to  these  difficulties  with  zeal  and  efficiency  will  not  be  doubted  by  the  mil 
lions  in  the  South  to  whom  their  abilities  and  character  are  as  familiar  as  household 

words.     During  my  stay  in  London  I  was  frequently  at  the  rooms  of  Colonel  M , 

and  can  thus  bear  personal  testimony  to  his  zeal  and  efficiency.  He  seemed  to  ap 
preciate  the  necessity  of  educating  the  English  mind  to  the  proper  view  of 
the  various  difficulties  in  the  way  of  his  progresls;  and,  with  but  limited  means  of 
effecting  his  objects,  he  worked  with  untiring  industry  for  their  accomplishment ; 
and,  as  I  have  also  written,  a  distinguished  member  of  Congress  is,  I  believe,  doing 
all  that  talent,  energy,  and  peculiar  fitness  for  his  position  can  accomplish.  With 
out  any  other  aid  than  his  intimate  knowledge  of  English  character,  and  that  care 
ful  style  of  procedure  which  his  thorough  training  as  a  diplomatist  has  given  him, 
he  has  managed  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  most  of  the  distinguished  representa 
tives  of  the  London  Press,  whose  powerful  batteries  thus  influenced  are  brought  to 
bear  upon  the  American  question.  This  of  course  involves  an  immense  labour, 
which  he  stands  up  to  unflinchingly.  So  much  for  his  zeal.  His  efficiency,  with 
that  of  his  colleague,  is  manifested  in  the  recognition  of  our  rights  as  a  belligerent, 
and  in  the  wonderful  revolution  in  the  tone  of  the  English  Press.  .  .  .  The  in 
fluence  of  this  lever  upon  public  opinion  was  manifest  during  my  stay  in  Paris 
"When  I  first  went  there,  there  was  not  a  single  paper  to  speak  out  in  our  behalf. 
In  a  few  days,  however,  three  brochures  were^jlBsued  which  seemed  to  take  the 
Parisian  Press  by  storm.  One  of  them  was  the  able  and  important  letter  of  the 
Hotf.  T.  Butler  King  to  the  Minister;  another,  '  The  American  Revolution  Unveiled,' 
by  Judge  Pequet,  formerly  of  New  Orleans — whose  charming  and  accomplished 
lady,  by  the  way,  is  a  native  of  Richmond ;  and  a  third,  '  The  American  Question,' 
by  Ernest  Bellot  des  Minieres,  the  agent  of  the  French  purchasers  of  the  Virginia 
canals.  These  works  each  in  turn  created  a  great  deal  of  attention,  and  their  united 
effect  upon  the  French  mind  shows  the  effective  character  of  this  appliance. 
Messrs.  Bellot  and  Pequet  deserve  well  of  the  Confederacy  for  their  powerful  and 
voluntary  advocacy.  I  can,  and  with  great  pleasure  do,  bear  testimony  to  the  valu 
able  and  persevering  efforts  of  Mr.  King  both  in  Paris  and  London.  Among  the 
first  acquaintances  I  had  the  pleasure  of  making  while  in  London  was  Mr  Gregory 
M.  P.,  to  whom  I  carried  letters  of  introduction  from  a  Virginian  gentleman  long 
resident  in  Paris,  who  very  kindly  either  introduced  or  pointed  out  to  me  the  distin 
guished  members  of  Parliament.  He  had  been,  I  found,  a  traveller  in  Virginia,  and 
inquired  after  several  persons,  among  whom  was  Mr.  John  B.  Rutherford,  of  Gooch- 
land.  During  an  hour's  walk  upon  the  pron'.enade  between  the  new  parliament 
houses  and  the  Thames,  he  plied  me  with  questions  as  to  the  '  situation '  in  the 
Confederacy,  and  seemed  greatly  encouraged  by  my  replies;  more  so,  HP  said,  than 
at  any  time  since  the  revolution  commenced." 


THE  UNIONIST  SENTIMENT.  29 

• 

demand  for  separation,  was  he  not  at  least  bound  to  ascertain 
that  that  demand  represented  the  real  wish  of  the  Southern 
people  ?  Bat,  after  war  had  been  proclaimed,  or  rather  com 
menced,  by  the  South,  how  was  this  to  be  done  otherwise  than 
by  accepting  the  challenge?  Was  the  Government  at  once  to 
lower  the  standard  of  law  before  that  of  revolution,  without 
even  inquiring  by  whom  the  revolution  was  supported  ?  But 
in  truth  the  President's  case  was  much  stronger  than  this.  The 
Government  was  in  possession  of  evidence  which  at  least  ren 
dered  it  very  probable  that  at  this  time  the  separatists  were  in 
a  minority  in  the  South,  even  in  those  places  where  they  were 
believed  to  be  strongest.  At  the  presidential  election  which 
had  just  been  held,  the  votes  for  the  unionist  candidates  in  the 
extreme  south  exceeded  those  for  the  candidate  who  repre 
sented  the  secession  ;  in  the  intermediate  states,  the  unionist 
votes  formed  two-thirds  of  the  constituency  ;  in  Missouri,  three- 
fourths.*  Will  it  be  said  that,  with  such  facts  before  him, 
which  were  surely  a  safer  criterion  of  Southern  feeling  than  the 
votes  of  conventions  obtained  under  mob-terrorism,  Mr.  Lincoln 
should  at  once  have  acquiesced  in  the  demand  for  secession, 
and  quietly  permitted  the  consummation  of  a  conspiracy,  which 
for  deliberate  treachery,  betrayal  of  sacred  trusts,  and  shame 
less  and  gigantic  fraud,  has  seldom  been  matched  ?  To  have 
done  so,  would  have  been  to  have  written  himself  down  before 
the  world  as  incompetent — nay,  as  a  traitor  to  the  cause  which 
he  had  j  net  sworn  to  defend. 

The  right  of  secession  became  thus  by  force  of  circumstances 
the  ostensible  ground  of  the  war ;  and  with  the  bulk  of  the 
Northern  people  it  must  be  admitted  it  was  not  only  the  osten 
sible  but  the  real  ground  ^  for  it  is  idle  to  claim  for  the  North 
a  higher  or  more  generous  principle  of  conduct  than  that 
which  itself  put  forward.  The  one  prevailing  and  overpower 
ing  sentiment  in  the  North,  so  soon  as  the  designs  of  the  South 
were  definitively  disclosed,  was  undoubtedly  the  determination 
to  uphold  the  Union,  and  to  crush  the  traitors  who  had  con 
spired  to  dissolve  it.  In  this  country  we  had  looked  for  some 
thing  higher  ;  we  had  expected,  whether  reasonably  or  not,  an 
anti-slavery  crusade.  We  were  disappointed  ;  and  the  result 
was,  as  has  been  stated,  a  re-action  of  sentiment  which  has  pre 
vented  us  from  doing  justice  to  that  which  was  really  worthy 

*  See  Annuaire  des  Deux  Mondes,  1860,  p.  608;  also  the  extract  from  the  Com 
monwealth  of  Frankfort  (Kentucky),  p.  606,  and  that  from  the  Charleston  Mercury, 
p.  609,  from  which  it  appears  that  on  the  eve  of  the  presidential  election,  some  of 
the  leading  journals  of  the  South  regarded  the  secession  movement  as  the  work  of  a 
body  of  noisy  demagogues,  whose  views  found  no  response  amoug  the  majority  of 
the  people. 


30  VIEWS  OF  THE  NORTH: 

9 

of  admiration  in  the  Northern  cause.  I  say  worthy  of  admira 
tiori ;  for  the  spectacle  which  the  North  presented  at  the  open 
ing  of  the  war  was  such  as  I  think  might  well  have  called  forth 
this  feeling.  It  was  th£  spectacle  of  a  people,  which,  having 
long  bent  its  neck  before  a  band  of  selfish  politicians,  and  been 
dragged  by  them  through  the  mire  of  shameless  transactions, 
had  suddenly  recovered  the  consciousness  of  its  pow.er  (and 
responsibilities,  and,  shaking  itself  free  from  their  spell,  stood 
erect  before  the  men  who  had  enthralled  its  conscience  and  its 
will.  A  community,  the  most  eager  in  the  world  in  the  chase 
after  gain,  forgot  its  absorbing  pursuit ;  parties,  a  moment  be 
fore  arrayed  against  each  other  in  a  great  political  contest,  laid 
aside  their  party  differences ;  a  whole  nation,  merging  all  pri 
vate  aims  in  the  single  passion  of  patriotism,  rose  to  arms  as  a 
single  man  ;  and  this  for  no  selfish  object,  but  to  maintain  the 
integrity  of  their  common  country  and  to  chastise  a  band  of 
conspirators,  who,  in  the  wantonness  of  their  audacity,  had 
dared  to  attack  it.  The  Northern  people,  conscious  that  it  had 
risen  above  the  level  of  ordinary  motives,  looked  abroad  for 
sympathy,  and  especially  looked  to  England.  It  was  ^iswered 
with  cold  criticism  and  derision.  The  response  was  perhaps 
natural  under  the  circumstances,  but  undoubtedly  not  more  so 
than  the  bitter  mortification  and  resentment  which  that  re 
sponse  evoked. 

The  prevailing  idea  that  inspired  the  Northern  rising  was,  I 
have  said,  the  determination  to  uphold  the  Union.  Still  it 
would  be  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  this  idea  represented 
the  whole  significance  of  the  movement,  even  so  far  as  this 
was  to  be  gathered  from  the  views  of  the  North.  While  loyal 
ty  to  the  Union  pervaded  and  held  together  all  classes,  another 
sentiment — the  sentiment  of  hostility  to  slavery — though  less 
widely  diffused,  was  strongly  entertained  by  a  considerable 
party,  and  came  more  directly  into  collision  than  the  unionist 
feeling  with  the  real  aims  of  the  seceders.  "The  abolition 
ists,"  conventionally  so  known,  formed  indeed  a  small  band. 
They  had  hitherto  advocated  separation  as  a  means  of  escape 
from  connexion  with  slavery,  but  they  now  threw  themselves 
with  ardour  into  the  war  ;  not  that  they  swerved  from  their 
original  aim,  but  that  they  believed  they  saw  in  the  war  the 
most  effectual  means  of  advancing  that  aim  by  breaking  with 
slavery  for  ever;  because  with  true  instinct  they  felt  that,  se 
cession  having  been  undertaken  for  the  purpose  of  extending 
slavery,  the  most  effectual  means  to  defeat  that  purpose  was  to 
defeat  secession.  The  anti-slavery  feeling,  however,  prevails 
far  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  party  known  as  "  abolitionists." 


THE  ANTI-SLA  VER  Y  SENTIMENT.  31 

Outside  this  sect  are  a  large  number  of  able  men,  including 
such  names  as  Horace  Greeley,  Sumner,  Giddings,  Hale,  Olm- 
sted,  Weston,  Longfellow,  Bryant,  Fremont,  men  who,  while 
refusing  to  pronounce  the  shibboleth  of  the  abolitionists,  share 
in  a  large  degree  their  views.  The  effect  of  the  war  has  been, 
as  might  have  been  supposed,  to  bring  this  class  of  politicians 
into  closer  union  than  before  with  the  extreme  sect.  The  two 
have  now  begun  to  act  habitually  together,  and  for  practical 
purposes  may  be  regarded  as  constituting  a  single  party.  Now 
it  is  these  men,  and  not  the  mere  unionists,  whose  opinions 
form  the  natural  antithesis  to  the  aims  of  the  seceders.  Be 
tween  these  and  the  South  there  can  be  no  compromise  ;  and, 
conformably  to  the  law  which  invariably  governs  revolutions, 
they  are  the  party  who  are  rapidly  becoming  predominant  in 
the  North.  The  anti-slavery  feeling  is  already  rapidly  gaining 
on  the  mere  unionist  feeling,  and  bids  fair  ultimately  to  super 
sede  it.  In  the  anti-slavery  ranks  are  now  to  be  found  men 
who  but  a  year  ago  were  staunch  supporters  of  slavery.  Anti- 
slavery  orators  are  now  cheered  to  the  echo  by  multitudes  who 
but  a  year  ago  hooted  and  pelted  them  :  they  have  forced  their 
way  into  the  stronghold  of  their  enemies,  and  William  Lloyd 
Garrison  lectures  in  New  York  itself  with  enthusiastic  ap 
plause.  The  anti-slavery  principle  thus  tends  constantly,  under 
the  influences  which  are  in  operation,  to  become  more  power 
ful  in  the  North  ;*  and  it  is  this  fact  which  justifies  the  view 
of  those  who  have  predicted  that  it  is  only  necessary  the  war 
should  continue  long  enough  in  order  that  it  be  converted  into 
a  purely  abolition  struggle. 

These  considerations  will  enable  the  reader  to  perceive  how, 
while  the  North  has  arisen  to  uphold  the  Union  in  its  integrity, 
slavery  is  yet  the  true  cause  of  the  war,  and  that  the  real  sig 
nificance  of  the  war  is  its  relation  to  slavery.  I  think,  too, 
they  must  be  held  to  afford  a  complete  justification  of  the 
North  in  its  original  determination  to  maintain  the  Union  ; 
but  this  is  scarcely  now  the  practical  question.  There  was,  at 
the  first,  reason  to  believe  that  a  very  considerable  element  of 
population  favourable  to  the  Union  existed  in  the  South. 
While  this  was  the  case,  it  was  no  less  than  the  duty  of  the 
Federal  government  to  rescue  these  citizens  from  the  tyranny 

*  While  these  sheets  are  passing  through  the  press,  the  intelligence  has  arrived 
of  Mr.  Lincoln's  proposal  for  an  accommodation  with  the  Secessionists  on  the  terms 
of  co-operating  with  any  state,  disposed  to  adopt  a  policy  of  gradual  emancipation 
by  means  of  pecuniary  assistance  to  be  provided  from  the  Federal  revenues.  The 
writer  could  scarcely  have  anticipated  so  early  and  so  remarkable  a  confirmation  of 
the  views  expressed  in  the  text. 


32  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  QUESTION. 

of  a  rebel  oligarchy.  But  do  grounds  for  that  supposition  still 
exist?  Before  the  war  broke  out,  it  is  well  known  that  seme- 
thing  like  a  reign  of  terror  prevailed  in  the  South  for  all  wao 
fell  short  of  the  most  extreme  standard  of  pro-slavery  opinion. 
The  rigour  of  that  reign  will  hardly  have  been  relaxed  since 
the  war  commenced,  and  must  no  doubt  have  produced  a  very 
considerable  emigration  of  loyal  citizens,  The  infectious 
enthusiasm  of  the  war  will  probably  have  operated  to  make 
many  converts ;  and,  under  the  influences  of  both  these  causes, 
the  South,  or  at  least  that  portion  of  the  South  which  has  led 
the  way  in  this  movement,  has  probably  by  this  time  been 
brought  to  a  substantial  unanimity  of  opinion,  a  conclusion 
which  is  strongly  confirmed  by  the  absence  of  any  sign  of  dis 
affection  to  the  Confederation  among  its  population.*  Under 
these  circumstances  what  is  the  policy  to  which  Europe,  in  the 
interests  of  civilization,  should  give  its  moral  support?  This 
country  has  long  made  up  its  rnind  as  to  the  impossibility  of 
forcibly  reconstructing  the  Union  ;  perhaps  it  has  also  satisfied 
itself  of  the  undesirableness  of  this  result.  Of  neither  of  these 
opinions  is  the  writer  prepared  to  contest  the  soundness.  But 
this  being  conceded,  an  all-important  question  remains  for  deci 
sion.  On  what  conditions  is  the  independence  of  the  South  to 
be  established  ?  For  the  solution  of  this  question  in  the  inte 
rests  of  civilization,  a  knowledge  of  the  character  and  designs 
of  the  power  which  represents  the  South  is  requisite,  and  it  is 
this  which  it  is  the  aim  of  the  present  work  to  furnish.  Mean 
while,  however,  it  may  be  said  that  the  definitive  severance  of 
the  Union  is  perfectly  compatible  with  either  the  accomplish 
ment  of  the  original  design  of  the  seceders — the  extension  of 
slavery,  or  the  utter  defeat  of  that  design,  according  to  the 
terms  on  which  the  separation  takes  place ;  and  that  therefore 
the  severance  of  the  Union  by  no  means  implies  the  defeat  of 
the  North  or  the  triumph  of  the  South.  The  Southern  leaders 
may  be  assumed  to  know  their  own  objects,  and  to  be  the  best 
judges  of  the  means  which  are  necessary  to  their  accomplish 
ment;1  and  we  may  be  certain  that  no  arrangement  which  in 
volves  the  frustration  of  these  objects  will  be  acquiesced  in 
until  after  a  complete  prostration  of  their  strength.  If  this  be 
so,  it  is  important  to  ascertain  what  the  objects  of  the  South 
are.  For  if  these  objects  be  inconsistent  with  the  interests  of 
civilization  and  the  happiness  of  the  human  race  (and  I  shall 


*  Since  the  above  passage  was  written  come  unionist  demonstrations  in  the 
Border  states  following  on  the  success  of  the  Northern  armies,  have  shewn  that  the 
unanimity  is  not  as  complete  as  the  writer  imagined  :  still  he  does  not  conceive  that 
what  has  occurred  is  at  all  calculated  to  affect  the  general  scope  of  his  reasoning. 


THE  A  CTUAL  POSITION  OF  SLA  VER  T.  83 

endeavour  to  show  that  this  is  the  case),  then  no  settlement  of 
the  American  dispute  which  is  not  preceded  by  a  thorough 
humbling  of  the  slave  party  should  be  satisfactory  to  those  who 
have  human  interests  at  heart.  This  is  the  cardinal  point  of 
the  whole  question.  The  designs  of  the  seceders  are  either 
legitimate  and  consistent  with  human  interests,  or  the  contrary. 
If  they  are  legitimate,  let  this  be  shown,  and  let  us  in  this  case 
wish  them  God  speed :  if  they  are  not,  and  if  the  Southern 
leaders  may  be  taken  to  know  what  is  essential  to  their  own 
ends,  then  we  may  be  sure  that  nothing  short  of  the  effectual 
defeat  of  the  South  in  the  present  war  will  secure  a  settlement 
which  shall  be  consistent  with  what  the  best  interests  of  man 
kind  require. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE    ECONOMIC    BASIS    OF   SLAVERY. 

BEFORE  proceeding  to  an  examination  of  the  social  and  political 
system  which  has  been  reared  upon  the  basis  of  slavery  in 
North  America,  it  will  be  desirable  to  devote  some  considera 
tion  to  the  institution  itself  in  its  industrial  aspects.  The  poli 
tical  tendencies  of  the  Slave  Power,  as  will  hereafter  be  seen, 
are  determined  in  a  principal  degree  by  the  economic  necessi 
ties  under  which  it  is  placed  by  its  fundamental  institution ;  and 
in  order,  therefore,  to  appreciate  the  nature  of  those  tendencies, 
a  determination  of  the  conditions  requisite  for  the  success  of 
slavery,  as  an  industrial  system,  becomes  indispensable. 

The  form  in  wh'cli  it  will  be  most  convenient  to  discuss  this 
question  will  be  in  connexion  with  the  actual  position  of  slavery 
in  the  American  continent.  As  is  well  known,  the  system 
formed  originally  a  common  feature  in  all  the  Anglo-Saxon  set 
tlements  in  that  part  of  the  world,  existing  in  the  northern  no 
less  than  the  southern  colonies,  in  New  England  no  less  than  in 
Virginia.  But  before  much  time  had  elapsed  from  their  origi 
nal  foundation,  it  became  evident  that  it  was  destined  to  occupy 
very  different  positions  among  these  rising  communities.  In 
the  colonies  north  of  Delaware  Bay  slavery  rapidly  fell  into  a 
subordinate  place,  and  gradually  died  out;  while  in  those  south 
of  that  inlet  its  place  in  the  industrial  system  became  constant 
ly  more  prominent,  until  ultimately  it  has  risen  to  a  position  of 
paramount  importance  in  that  region,  overpowering  every 
rival  influence,  and  moulding  all  the  phenomena  of  the  social 

3 


84      THEORY  OF  DIVERSE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  FOUNDERS. 

state  into  conformity  with  its  requirements.  The  problem,  then, 
which  I  propose  to  consider  is  the  cause  of  this  difference  in 
the  fortunes  of  slavery  in  these  different  portions  of  American 
soil. 

Several  theories  have  been  advanced  in  explanation  of  the 
phenomenon.  One  of  these  attributes  it  to  diversity  of  charac 
ter  in  the  original  founders  of  the  communities  in  question  ;*  for, 
though  proceeding  from  the  same  country  and  belonging  to  the 
same  race,  the  Anglo-Saxon  emigrations  to  North  ^America, 
according  as  they  were  directed  to  the  north  or  south  of  that 
continent,  were  in  the  main  drawn  from  different  classes  of  the 
mother  nation.  Massachusetts  and  the  ot^ier  New  England 
States  were  colonized  principally  from  the  elite  of  the  middle 
and  lower  classes — by  people  who,  being  accustomed  to  labour 
with  their  own  hands,  would  feel  less  the  need  of  slaves ;  and 
who,  moreover,  owing  to  their  political  views,  having  little  to 
hope  for  in  the  way  of  assistance  from  the  country  they  had 
quitted,  would  have  little  choice  but  to  trust  to  their  personal 
exertions.  On  the  other  hand,  the  early  emigration  to  Virginia, 
Maryland,  and  the  Carolinas  was  for  the  most  part  composed  of 
the  sons  of  the  gentry,  whose  ideas  and  habits  but  ill  fitted 
them  for  a  struggle  with  nature  in  the  wilderness.  Such  emi 
grants  had  little  disposition  to  engage  personally  in  the  work 
of  clearance  and  production :  nor  were  they  under  the  same 
necessity  for  this  as  their  brethren  in  the  North;  for,  being 
composed  in  great  part  of  cavaliers  and  loyalists,  they  were, 
for  many  years  after  the  first  establishment  of  the  settlements, 
sustained  and  petted  by  the  home  government;  being  furnished 
not  merely  with  capital  in  the  shape  of  constant  supplies  of 
provisions  and  clothing,  but  with  labourers  in  the  shape  of  con 
victs,  indented  servants,  and  slaves.  In  this  way  the  colonists 
of  the  Yirginian  group  were  relieved  from  the  necessity  of  per 
sonal  toil,  and  in  this  way,  it  is  said,  slavery,  which  found  little 
footing  in  the  North,  and  never  took  firm  root  there,  became 
established  in  the  Southern  States. 

This  explanation,  however,  carries  us  but  a  short  way  towards 
the  point  we  have  in  view.  It  explains  the  more  rapid  exten 
sion  of  slavery  in  early  times  in  the  colonies  which  were  in 
their  origin  most  patronized  by  the  home  government,  but  it 
does  not  explain  why  slavery,  which  had,  though  not  extensive 
ly,  been  introduced  into  the  Northern  colonies,  should  not  have 
subsequently  increased ;  much  less  does  it  afford  any  explana- 

*  See  Stirling's  Letters  from  Vie  Slave  States,  p.  64,  where  greater  importance  ia 
attributed  to  this  circumstance  than  it  appears  to  me  to  deserve;  and  compare 
Olmsted's  Seaboard  States,  pp.  181-183,  220,  221. 


THEORY  OF  CLIMATE  AND  RACE.  35 

tion  of  its  ultimate  extinction  in  the  North.  It  is  certain  the 
New  Englanders  were  not  withheld  from  employing  slaves  by 
moral  scruples,  and,  if  the  system  had  been  found  suitable  to 
the  requirements  of  the  country,  it  is  to  be  presumed  that  they 
would  have  gradually  extended  its  basis,  and  that,  like  their 
neighbours,  especially  since  the  treaty  of  Utrecht  had  secured 
for  English  enterprise  the  African  slave-trade,  they  would  have 
availed  themselves  of  this  means  of  recruiting  their  labour 
market. 

Another  and  more  generally  accepted  solution  refers  the 
phenomenon  in  question  to  the  influence  of  climate  and  the 
character  of  the  negro  race.  The  European  constitution,  we 
are  told,  cannot  endure  a  climate  in  which  the  negro  can  toil, 
thrive,  and  multiply,  and  the  indolence  of  the  negro  is  such 
that  he  will  only  work  under  compulsion.  If  it  were  not, 
therefore,  for  negro  slavery,  the  world  must  have  gone  without 
those  commodities  which  are  the  peculiar  product  of  tropical 
climes.  Mankind,  in  effect,  says  this  theory,  has  had  to  choose 
between  maintaining  slavery  and  abandoning  the  use  of  cotton, 
tobacco,  and  sugar,  and  the  instincts  of  humanity  have  suc 
cumbed  before  the  more  powerful  inducements  of  substantial 
gain. 

It  would,  perhaps,  be  too  much  to  say  that  this  view  of  the 
causes  which  have  maintained  slavery  in  the  Southern  districts 
of  North  America  is  absolutely  destitute  of  foundation,  but  there 
can  be  no  hesitation  in  saying  that,  as  a  theory,  it  utterly  fails 
to  account  for  the  facts  which  it  is  sought  to  explain.  The 
climate  of  the  oldest  of  the  Slave  States — Virginia,  Maryland, 
Delaware,  North  and  South  Carolina — is  remarkably  genial 
and  perfectly  suited  to  the  industry  of  Europeans  ;*  and,  though 
the  same  is  not  true  in  the  same  degree  of  the  Gulf  States,  yet 
it  is  a  fact  that  these  regions  also  afford  examples  of  free  Euro 
pean  communities  increasing  in  numbers  under  a  semi-tropical 
climate,  and  rising  to  opulence  through  the  labour  of  their  own 
hands.  In  Texas  a  flourishing  colony  of  free  Germans,  amon^ 
whom  no  slave  is  to  be  found,  engage  in  all  the  occupations  of 
the  country,  and  are  only  prevented  by  their  distance  from  the 
great  navigable  rivers,  and  the  want  of  other  means  of  commu 
nication,  from  applying  themselves  extensively  to  that  very 
cultivation — the  growing  of  cotton — which  the  complacent  rea 
son  ers  whose  theory  we  are  considering  choose  to  regard  as  the 
ordained  function  of  the  negro  race.f 

*  Olmsted's  Slave  States,  pp.  131,  462-3. 

.  f  "  The  Southern  parts  of  the  Union,"  says  De  Tocqueville,  "are  not  hotter  tkan 
the  south  of  Italy  and  of  Spain ;  and  it  may  be  asked  why  the  European  cannot 


36       ALLEGED  INDOLENCE  OF  THE  NEGRO. 

"  If  we  look,"  says  Mr.  Weston,  "  to  the  origin  of  the  Euro 
pean  races  which  inhabit  this  country,  Georgia  and  Alabama 
and  Tennessee  are  more  like  their  mother  countries  than  New 
England  is.  The  Irishman  and  Englishman  and  German  find 
in  Missouri  and  Texas  a  climate  less  dissimilar  to  that  at  home, 
than  they  do  in  Wisconsin  and  Minnesota.  The  heats  of  summer 
are  longer  and  steadier  at  the  South,  but  not  more  excessive 
than  at  the  North.  Labour  in  the  fields  is  performed  by  whites, 
and  without  any  ill  consequences  in  the  extreme  South.  Nearly 
all  the  heavy  out  door  work  in  the  city  of  New  Orleans  is  per 
formed  by  whites The  practical  experience  of  mankind 

is  a  sufficient  answer  to  fanciful  rules,  which,  applied  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  would  surrender  to  the  African, 
Spain,  France,  and  Italy,  and  drive  back  their  present  inhabi 
tants  to  the  shores  of  the  Baltic.  The  three  thousand  years  of 
recorded  civilization  in  the  regions  which  environ  the  Mediterra 
nean  on  all  its  sides,  prove  that  no  part  of  the  continental  borders 
of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  none  of  the  islands  which  separate 
it  from  the  ocean,  need  be  abandoned  to  the  barbarism  of  negro 
slavery.  The  European  stock  is  found  everywhere,  from  Texas 
to  Patagonia,  and  in  every  part  of  that  whole  extent  is  more 
vigorous  and  prolific  than  any  other  race,  indigenous  or  im 
ported.  Isothermal  lines  are  not  uniform  with  parallels  of  lati 
tude  ;  vertical  suns  are  qualified  by  ocean  breezes  and  mountain 
heights ;  and  America,  even  at  the  equator,  offers  to  man  salu 
brious  abodes."* 

But  still  more  fatally  does  the  theory  halt  upon  the  other 
limb  of  the  argument — the  incorrigible  indolence  of  the  negro. 
Whatever  plausibility  there  may  have  been  in  this  oft  repeated 
assertion  in  times  when  the  negro  was  only  known  as  a  slave 
or  as  a  pariah  in  a  land  where  his  existence  was  scarcely  tole 
rated,  it  is  perfectly  futile  to  advance  such  statements  now  in 
the  face  of  the  facts  which  recent  observations  have  revealed 
to  us.  "  We,  in  the  United  States,"  says  Mr.  Sewell,  "  have 
heard  of  abandoned  properties  in  the  West  Indies,  and,  with- 
mit  much  investigation,  have  listened  to  the  planters'  excuse — 
the  indolence  of  the  negro,  who  refuses  to  work  except  under 


work  as  well  there  as  in  the  two  latter  countries.  If  slavery  has  been  abolished  in 
Italy  and  in  Spain  without  causing  the  destruction  of  the  masters,  why  should  not 
the  same  thing  take  place  in  the  Union  ?  I  cannot  believe  that  Nature  has  prohi 
bited  the  Europeans  in  Georgia  and  the  Floridas,  under  pain  of  death,  from  raising 
the  means  of  subsistence  from  the  soil ;  but  their  labour  would  unquestionably  be 
more  irksome  and  less  productive  to  them  than  that  of  the  inhabitants  of  New  Eng 
land.  As  the  free  workman  thus  loses  a  portion  of  his  superiority  over  the  slave  in 
the  Southern  States,  there  are  fewer  inducements  to  abolish  slavery." 
*  Progress  of  Slavery,  pp.  160,  161. 


GROUNDLESSNESS  OF  THE  CHARGE.  37 

compulsion.  But  I  shall  be  able  to  show  that,  in  those  colonies 
where  estates  have  been  abandoned,  the  labouring  classes,  in 
stead  of  passing  from  servitude  to  indolence  and  idleness,  have 
set  up  for  themselves,  and  that  small  proprietors  since  emanci 
pation  have  increased  a  hundred  fold."  .  .  .  .  "  It  is  a 
fact  which  speaks  volumes  that,  within  the  last  fifteen  years,  in 
spite  of  the  extraordinary  price  of  land  and  the  low  rate  of 
wages,  the  small  proprietors  of  Bai'badoes  holding  less  than 
five  acres  have  increased  from  1100  to  3537.  A  great  majority 
of  these  proprietors  were  formerly  slaves,  subsequently  free 
labourers,  and  finally  landholders.  This  is  certainly  an  evi 
dence  of  industrious  habits,  and  a  remarkable  contradiction  to 
the  prevailing  idea  that  the  negro  will  work  only  under  com 
pulsion.  That  idea  was  formed  and  fostered  from  the  habits 
of  the  negro  as  a  slave  ;  his.  habits  as  a  freeman,  developed 
under  a  wholesome  stimulus  and  settled  by  time,  are  in  strik 
ing  contrast  to  his  habits  as  a  slave.  I  am  simply  stating  a 
truth  in  regard  to  the  Barbadian  Creole,  which  here,  at  least, 
will  not  be  denied.  I  have  conversed  on  the  subject  with  all 
classes  and  conditions  of  people,  and  none  are  more  ready  to 
admit  than  the  planters  themselves,  that  the  free  labourer  in 
Barbadoes  is  a  better,  more  cheerful,  and  more  industrious 
workman  than  the  slave  ever  was  under  a  system  of  compul 
sion."  And,  again,  of  an  island  very  differently  circumstanced 
from  Barbadoes  the  same  author  writes  : — "  I  have  taken  some 
pains  to  trace  the  Creole  labourers  of  Trinidad  from  the  time 
of  emancipation,  after  they  left  the  estates  and  dispersed,  to 
the  present  day  ;  and  the  great  majority  of  them  can,  I  think, 
be  followed,  step  by  step,  not  downward  in  the  path  of  idleness 
and  poverty,  but  upward  in  the  scale  of  civilization  to  positions 
of  greater  independence."*  This  testimony  of  a  perfectly 
unimpassioned  witness,  coming  after  ten  years'  further  expe 
rience  in  corroboration  of  the  evidence  given  by  Mr.  Bigelow 
in  1850,  ought  to  set  this  question  at  rest.  There  is  not  a  tittle 
of  evidence  to  show  that  the  aversion  of  the  negro  to  labour  is 
naturally  stronger  than  that  of  any  other  branch  of  the  human 
family.  So  long  as  he  is  compelled  to  work  for  the  exclusive 
benefit  of  a  master,  he  will  be  inclined  to  evade  his  task  by 
every  means  in  his  power,  as  the  white  man  would  do  under 
similar  circumstances  ;  but  emancipate  him,  and  subject  him 
to  the  same  motives  which  act  upon  the  free  white  labourer, 


*  Sewell's  Ordeal  of  Free  Labour  in  the  West  Indies,  pp.  34-35,  39-40.  And  for 
evidence  to  the  same  effect  respecting  the  Jamaican  negroes,  see  post,  pp.  198,  202, 
fcx 


38  TRUE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM— ECONOMIC. 

and  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  he  will  not  be  led  to  exert 
himself  with  equal  energy.* 

A  circumstance  more  influential  in  determining  the  history 
of  slavery  in  America  than  either  origin  or  climate  is  pointed 
at  by  De  Tocqueville  in  his  remark,  that  the  soil  of  New  Eng 
land  "  was  entirely  opposed  to  a  territorial  aristocracy."  "To 
bring  that  refractory  land  into  cultivation,  the  constant  and 
interested  exertions  of  the  owner  himself  were  necessary  ;  and, 
when  the  ground  was  prepared,  its  produce  wus  found  to  be 
insufficient  to  enrich  a  master  and  a  farmer  at  the  same  time. 
The  land  was  then  naturally  broken  up  into  small  portions  which 
the  proprietor  cultivated  for  himself."  Such  a  country,  for 
reasons  which  will  presently  be  more  fully  indicated,  was 
entirely  unsuited  to  cultivation  by  slave  labour ;  but  what  I 
wish  here  to  remark  is,  that  this  fact,  important  as  it  is  with 
reference  to  our  subject,  is  yet  insufficient  in  itself  to  afford  the 
solution  which  we  seek  ;  for,  though  it  would  account  for  the 
disappearance  of  slavery  from  the  New  England  States,  it  fails 
entirely  when  applied  to  the  country  west  and  south  of  the 
Hudson,  which  is  for  the  most  part  exceedingly  fertile,  but  in 
which,  nevertheless,  slavery,  though  extensively  introduced, 
has  not  been  able  to  maintain  itself.  To  understand,  therefore, 
the  conditions  on  which  the  success-of  a  slave  regime  depends, 
we  must  advert  to  other  considerations  than  any  which  have  yet 
been  adduced. 

The  true  causes  of  the  phenomenon  will  appear  if  we  reflect 
on  the  characteristic  advantages  and  disadvantages  which  attach 
respectively  to  slavery  and  free  labour,  as  productive'  instru 
ments,  in  connexion  with  the  external  conditions  under  which 
these  forms  of  industry  came  into  competition  in  North 
America. 

The  economic  advantages  of  slavery  are  easily  stated :  they 
are  all  comprised  in  the  fact  that  the  employer  of  slaves  has 
absolute  power  over  his  workmen,  and  enjoys  the  disposal  of 

*  "  Considerons,"  saysM.  DeGasparin,  "ces  jolies  chaumieres,  ces  mobiliers  propres 
et  presque  elegants,  ces  jardins,  cet  air  general  de  bien-etre  et  de  civilisation ;  .'uter- 
rogeons  ces  noirs  dont  1'aspect  physique  s'est  deja  modifie  sous  1'influence  de  la 
liberte,  ces  noirs  dont  le  nombre  decroissait  rapideraent  a  1'epoque  de  1'esclavage  et 
commence  au  contraire  a.  s'accroitre  depuis  1'affranchissement ;  ils  nous  parleront  de 
leur  bonheur.  Les  uns  sont  devenus  proprietaires  et  travaillent  pour  leur  propre 
compte  (ce  n'est  pas  un  crime,  j'imagine),  les  autres  s'associent  pour  aftermer  de 
grandes  plantations  ou  portent  peut-etre  aux  usines  des  riches  planteurs  les  Cannes 
recoltees  chez  eux;  ceux-ci  sont  marchands,  beaucoup  louent  leurs  bras  comme  cul- 
tivateurs.  Quels  que  soient  les  torts  d'un  certain  nombre  d'individus,  I'ensemble 
des  negres  libres  a  m6rite  ce  temoignage  rendu  en  1857  par  le  governeur  de  Tabago: 
'  Je  nie  que  nos  noirs  de  la  campagne  aient  des  habitudes  de  paresse.  II  n'existe 
pas  dans  le  monde  une  classo  aussi  industrieuse.' " — Un  Grand  Peupk,  p.  312. 


MERITS  AND  DEFECTS  OF  SLA  VE  LABOUR.  39 

the  whole  fruit  of  their  labours.  Slave  labour,  therefore,  admits 
of  the  most  complete  organization,  that  is  to  say,  it  may  he 
combined  on  an  extensive  scale,  and  directed  by  a  control 
ling  mind, to  a  single  end,  and  its  cost  can  never  rise  above  that 
which  is  necessary  to  maintain  the  slave  in  health  and  strength,  i 

On  the  other  hand,  the  economical  defects  of  slave  labour    • 
are  very  serious.     They  may  be  summed  np  under  the  three 
following  heads: — it  is  given  reluctantly ;  it  is  unskilful;  it  is 
wanting  in  versatility. 

It  is  given  reluctantly,  and  consequently  the  industry  of  the 
slave  can  only  be  depended  on  so  long  as  he  is  watched.  The 
moment  the  master's  eye  is  withdrawn,  the  slave  relaxes  his 
efforts.  The  cost  of  slave  labour  will  therefore,  in  great  inea-f 
sure,  depend  on  the  degree  in  which  the  work  to  'be  performed 
admits  of  the  workmen  being  employed  in  close  proximity 
to  each  other.  If  the  work  be  such  that  a  large  gang  can  be 
employed  with  efficiency  within  a  small  space,  and  be  thus 
brought  under  the  eye  of  a  single  overseer,  the  expense  of 
superintendence  will  be  slight ;  if,  on  the  other  hand,  the  nature 
of  the  work  requires  that  the  workmen  should  be  dispersed 
over  an  extended  area,  the  number  of  overseers,  and  therefore, 
the  cost  of  the  labour  which  requires  this  supervision,  will  be 
proportionately  increase^  The  cost  of  slave-labour  thus  varies 
directly  with  the  degree  in  which  the  work  to  be  done  requires 
dispersion  of  the  labourers,  and  inversely  as  it  admits  of  their 
concentration.  Further,  the-work  being  performed  reluctantly, 
fear  is  substituted  for  hope,  as  the  stimulus  to  exertion.  But 
fear  is  ill  calculated  to  draw  from  a  labourer  all  the  industry 
of  which  he  is  capable..  "Fear,"  says  Bentham,*"  leads  the 
labourer  to  hide  his  powers,  rather  than  to  show  them  ;  to 
remain  below,  rather  than 'to  surpass  himself."  ....  "By 
displaying  superior  capacity,  the  slave  would  only  raiee  the" 

*    i  •  J-  JBa*-******-***"** 

measure  01  Ins  ordinary  duties;  by  a  work  OPSnpererogatioil 
he  would  only  prepare  punishment  for  himself."  He  there-  M 
fore  seeks,  by  concealing  his  powers,  to  reduce  to  the  lowest 
the  standard  of  requisition.  "  His  ambition  is  the  reverse  of 
that  of  the  freeman ;  he  seeks  to  descend  in  the  scale  of  indus 
try,  rather  than  to  ascend." 

Secondly,  slave  labour  is  unskilful,  and  this,  not  only  because 
the  slave,  having  no  interest  in  his  work,  has  no  inducement  to 
exert  his  higher  faculties,  but  because,  from  the  ignorance  to 
which  he  is  of  necessity  condemned,  he  is  incapable  of  doing 
so.  In  the  Slave  States  of  North  America,  the  education  of 
slaves,  even  in  the  most  rudimentary  form,  is  proscribed  by 
law,  and  consequently  their  intelligence  is  kept  uniformly  andi 


40  MERITS  AND  DEFECTS  OF  FREE  LABOUR. 

constantly  at  the  very  lowest  point.  "  You  can  make  a  nigger 
work,"  said  an  interlocutor  in  one  of  Mr.  Olmsted's  dialogues, 
"but  you  cannot  make  him  think."  He  is  .therefore  unsuited 
for  all  branches  of  industry  which  require  the  slightest  care, 
forethought,  or  dexterity.  He  cannot  be  made  to  co-operate 
with  machinery  ;  he  can  only  be  trusted  with  the  coarsest  im 
plements  ;  he  is  incapable  of  all  but  the  rudest  forms  of  labour.* 
But  further,  slave  labour  is  eminently  defective  in  point  of 
versatility.  The  difficulty  of  teaching  the  slave  anything  is  so 
great,  that  the  only  chance  of  turning  his  labour  to  profit  is, 
when  he  has  once  learned  a  lesson,  to  keep  him  to  that  lesson 
for  life.  "Where  slaves,  therefore,  are  employed  there  can  be 
•no  variety  of  production.  If  tobacco  be  cultivated,  tobacco 
becomes  the  sole  staple,  and  tobacco  is  produced  whatever  be 
the  state  of  the  market,  and  whatever  be  the  condition  of  the 
soil.f  This  peculiarity  of  slave-labour,  as  we  shall  see,  involves 
some  very  important  consequences. 

Such  being  the  character  of  slave-labour,  as  an  industrial 
instrument,  let  us  now  consider  the  qualities  of  the  agency  with 
which,  in  the  colonization  of  North  America,  it  was  brought 
into  competition.  This  was  the  labour  of  peasant  proprietors, 
a  productive  instrument,  in  its  merits  and  defects,  the  exact  re 
verse  of  that  with  which  it  was  called  upon  to  compete.  Thus, 
the  great  and  almost  the  sole  excellence  of  slave-labour  is,  as  we 
have  seen,  its  capacity  for  organization ;  and  this  is  precisely 
the  circumstance  with  respect  to  which  the  labour  of  peasant 
proprietors  is  especially  defective.  In  a  community  of  peasant 
proprietors,  each  workman  labours  on  his  own  account,  without 
much  reference  to  what  his  fellow-workmen  are  doing.  There 
is  no  commanding  mind  to  whose  guidance  the  whole  labour 
force  will  yield  obedience,  and  under  whose  control  it  may  be 
directed  by  skilful  combinations  to  the  result  which  is  desired. 
Nor  does  this  system  afford  room  for  classification  and  econo- 

*  "  The  reason  was,  that  the  negro  could  never  be  trained  to  exercise  judgment ; 
;he  cannot  be  made  to  use  his  mind ;  he  always  depends  on  machinery  doing  its 
own* work,  and  cannot  be  made  to  watch  it.  He  neglects  it  until  something  is 
broken  or  there  is  great  waste.  We  have  tried  rewards  and  punishments,  but  it 
makes  no  difference.  It's  his  nature,  and  you  cannot  change  it.  All  men  are  indo 
lent  and  have  a  disinclination  to  labour,  but  this  is  a  great  deal  stronger  in  the  Afri- 
•can  race  than  in  any  other.  In  working  niggers,  we  must  always  calculate  that 
•they  will  not  labour  at  all  except  to  avoid  punishment,  and  they  will  never  do  more 
ithan  just  enough  to  save  themselves  from  being  punished,  and  no  amount  of  punish 
ment  will  prevent  their  working  carelessly  and  indifferently.  It  always  seems  on 
the  plantation  as  if  they  took  pains  to  break  all  the  tools  and  spoil  all  the  cuttle  that 
they  possibly  can,  even  when  they  know  they'll  be  punished  for  it." — Olmsted's 
Seaboard  Slave  States,  pp.  104,  105. 

f  Olmsted's  Seaboard  Skwe  Siates,  pp.  337  to  339. 


SLAVE  AND  FREE  LABOUR  COMPARED.  41 

mical  distribution  of  a  labour  force  in  the  same  degree  as  the 
system  of  slavery.  Under  the  latter,  for  example,  occupation 
ma)7  be  found  for  a  whole  family  of  .slaves,  according  to  the 
capacity  of  each  member,  in  performing  the  different  opera 
tions  connected  with  certain  branches  of  industry — say,  the 
culture  of  tobacco,  in*  which  the  women  and  children  may  be 
employed  in  picking  the  worms  off  the  plants,  or  gathering 
the  leaves  as  they  become  ripe,  while  the  men  are  engaged  in 
the  more  laborious  tasks ;  but  a  small  proprietor,  whose  chijdren 
are  at  school,  and  whose  wife  finds  enough  to  occupy  her  in  her 
domestic  duties,  can  command  for  all  operations,  however  im 
portant  or  however  insignificant,  no  other  labour  than  his  own, 
or  that  of  his  grown-up  sons — labour  which  would  be  greatly* 
misapplied  in  performing  such  manual  operations  as  I  have 
described.  His  team  of  horses  might  be  standing  idle  in  the 
stable,  while  he  was  gathering  tobacco  leaves  or  picking  worms, 
an  arrangement  which  would  render  his  work  exceedingly  cost 
ly.  The  system  of  peasant  proprietorship,  therefore,  does  not 
admit  of  combination  and  clas>iiication  of  labour  in  the  same 
degree  as  that  of  slavery.  But  if  in  this  respect  it  lies  under  a 
disadvantage  as  compared  with  its  rival,  in  every  other  respect 
it  enjoys  an  immense  superiority.  The  peasant  proprietor,  ap 
propriating  the  whole  produce  of  his  toil,  needs  no  other  stimu 
lus  to  exertion.  Superintendence  is  here  completely  dispensed 
with.  The  labourer  is  under  the  strongest  conceivable  induce 
ment  to  put  forth,  in  the  furtherance  of  his  task,  the  full  pow 
ers  of  his  mind  and  body  ;  and  his  mind,  instead  of  being  pur 
posely  stinted  and  stupitied,  is  enlightened  by  education,  and 
arou-ed  by  the  prospect  of  reward.* 

Such  are  the  two  productive  agencies  whicfi  came  into  com 
petition  on  the  soil  of  North  America.  If  we  now  turn  to  the 
external  conditions  under  which  the  competition  took  place,  we 
shall,  I  think,  have  no  difficulty  in  understanding  the  success 
of  each  respectively  in  that  portion  of  the  Continent  in  which 
it  did  in  fact  succeed. 

The  line  dividing  the  Slave  from  the  Free  States  marks  also 
an  important  division  in  the  agricultural  capabilities  of  North 
America.  North  of  this  line,  the  products  for  which  the  soil* 
and  climate  are  best  adapted' are  cereal  crops,  while  south  of  it 
the  prevailing  crops  are  tobacco,  rice,  cotton,  and  sugar ;  and 
these  two  classes  of  crops  are  broadly  distinguished  in  the  me 
thods  of  culture  suitable  to  each.  The  cultivation  of  the  one 
class,  of  which  cotton  may  betaken  as  the  type,  requires  for  its 
efficient  conduct  tliat  labour  should  be  combined  and  organized 

*  See  Nitrth  America,  its  Agriculture  and  Climatt,  by  Robert  Russell,  chap,  viil 


42  AGRICULTURAL  CAPABILITIES  OF  NORTH  AND  SOUTH. 

on  an  extensive  scale.*  On  the  other  hand,  for  the  raising  of 
cereal  crops  this  condition  is  not  so  essential.  Even  where 
labour  is  abundant  and  that  labour  free,  the  large  capitalist  does 
not  in  this  mode  of  farming  appear  on  the  whole  to  have  any 
preponderating  advantage  over  the  small  proprietor,  who,  with 
his  family,  cultivates  his  own  farm,  as  the  example  of  the  best 
cultivated  states  in  Europe  proves.  Whatever  superiority  he 
may  have  in  the  power  of  combining  and  directing  labour  seems 
to  be  compensated  by  the  greater  energy  and  spirit  which  the 
sense  of  property  gives  to  the  exertions  of  the  small  proprietor. 
But  there  is  another  essential  circumstance  in  which  these  two 
classes  of  crops  differ.  A  single  labourer,  Mr.  Russell  tells  us,f 
•can  cultivate  twenty  acres  of  wheat  or  Indian  corn,  while  he 
cannot  manage  more  than  two  of  tobacco,  or  three  of  cotton.  It 
appears  from  this  that  tobacco  and  cotton  fulfil  that  condition 
which  we  saw  was  essential  to  the  economical  employment  of 
slaves — the  possibility  of  working  large  numbers  within  a  limit 
ed  space  ;  while  wheat  and  Indian  corn,  in  the  cultivation 
of  which  the  labourers  are  dispersed  over  a  wide  surface, 
fail  in  this  respect.  We  thus  find  that  cotton,  and  the  class 
of  crops  of  which  cotton  may  be  taken  as  the  type,  favour 
the  employment  of  slaves  in  the  competition  with  peasant 
proprietors  in  two  leading  ways  :  first,  they  need  extensive 
combination  and  organization  of  labour — requirements  which 
slavery  is  eminently  calculated  to  Mipply,  but  in  respect 
to  which  the  labour  of  peasant  proprietors  is  defective;  and 
secondly,  they  allow  of  labour  being  concentrated,  and  thus 
minimize  the  cardinal  evil  of  slave-labour — the  reluctance 
with  which  it  is  yielded.  On  the  other  hand,  the  cultivation 
of  cereal  crops, -in  which  extensive  combination  of  labour  is 
not  important,  and  in  which  the  operations  of  industry  are 
widely  diffused,  offers  none  of  these  advantages  for  the  employ 
ment  of  slaves,;):  while  it  is  rernarkalily  fitted  to  bring  out  in 

*  Russell's  North  America,  p.  141.  f  Ibid.,  pp.  141,  164. 

\  The  same  observation  had  been  made  by  De  Tocqueville,  who  in  the  following 
passage  lias  suggested  a  further  reason  for  the  unsuitableness  of  slave-labour  for 
raiding  cereal  crops: — "It  has  been  observed  that  slave-labour  is  a  veiy  expensive 
method  of  cultivating  corn.  The  farmer  of  cornland  in  a  country  where  slavery  is 
unknown,  habitually  retains  a  small  number  of  labourers  in  his  service,  and  at  seed 
time  and  harvest  he  hires  several  additional  hands,  who  only  live  at  his  cost  for  a 
short  period.  But  the  agriculturist  in  a  slave  state  is  obliged  to  keep  a  large  num 
ber  of  slaves  the  whole  year  round,  in  order  to  sow  his  fields  and  to  gather  in  his 
crops,  although  their  services  are  only  required  for  a  few  weeks;  but  slaves  are 
unable  to  wait  till  they  are  hired,  and  to  subsist  by  their  own  labour  in  the  mean, 
time  like  free  labourers:  in  order  to  have  their  services,  they  must  be  bought. 
Slavery,  independently  of  its  general  disadvantages,  is  therefore  still  more  inappli 
cable  to  countries  in  which  corn  is  cultivated  than  to  those  which  produce  crops  of 
a  different  kind." — Democracy  in  America  vol.  ii.  p.  233. 


SLA  VE  AND  FREE  PROD  UCTS.  43 

the  highest  degree  the  especial  excellencies  of  the  industry  of 
free  proprietors.  Owing  to  these  causes  it  has  happened  that 
slavery  has  been  maintained  in  the  Southern  States,  which 
favour  the  growth  of  tobacco,  cotton,  and  analogous  products, 
while,  in  the  Northern  States,  of  which  cereal  crops  are  the 
great  staple,  it  frotn  an  early  period  declined  and  has  ulti 
mately  died  out.  And  in  confirmation  of  this  view  it  may  be 
added  that  wherever  in  the  Southern  States  the  external  condi 
tions  are  especially  favourable  to  cereal  crops,  as  in  parts  of 
Virginia,  Kentucky,  arid  Missouri,  and  along  the  slopes  of  the 
Aileghanies,  there  slavery  has  always  failed  to  maintain  itself. 
It  is  owing  to  this  cause  that  there  now  exists  in  some  parts  of 
the  South  a  considerable  element  of  free  labouring  population." 

These  considerations  appear  to  explain  the  permanence  of 
slavery  in  one  division  of  North  America,  and  its  disappear 
ance  from  the  other ;  butj  there  are  other  conditions  e>sential 
to  the  economic  success  of  the  institution  besides  those  which 
have  been  brought  into  view  in  the  above  comparison,  to  which 
it  is  necessary  to  advert  in  order  to  a  right  understanding  of 
its  true  basis.  These  are  high  fertility  in  the  soil,  and  a  prac 
tically  unlimited  extent  of  it. 

The  necessity  of  these  conditions  to  slavery  will  be  apparent 
by  reflecting  on  the  unskilful  ness  and  want  of  versatility  in 
slave  labour  to  which  we  have  already  referred. 

When  the1  soils  are  not  of  good  quality  cultivation  needs  to 
be  elaborate ;  a  larger  capital  is  expended  ;  and  with  the 
increase  of  capital  the  processes  become  more  varied,  and  the 
agricultural  implements  of  a  finer  and  more  delicate  construc 
tion.  With  such  implements  slaves  cannot  be  trusted,  and  for 
such  processes  they  are  unfit*  It  is  only,  therefore,  where  the 

*  "I  am  here  sbewn  tools,"  says  Mr.  Olmsted,  "that  no  man  in  his  senses,  with 
us,  would  allow  a  labourer,  to  whom  he  was  paying  wages,  to  be  encumbered  with ; 
and  the  excessive  weight  and  clumsiness  of  which,  I  would  judge,  would  make 
work  at  least  ten  per  cent,  greater  than  with  those  ordinarily  used  with  us.  Aiid  I 
am  assured  that,  in  the  careless  and  clumsy  way  they  must  be  used  by  the  slaves, 
anything  lighter  or  less  rude  could  Jiot  be  furnished  them  with  good  economy,  and 
that  such  tools  as  we  constantly  give  our  labourers,  and  find  our  profit  in  giving 
them,  would  not  last  out  a  day  in  a  Virginia  cornfield — much  lighter  and  more  free 
from  stones  though  it  be  than  ours. 

"  So,  too,  when  I  ask  why  mules  are  so  universally  substituted  for  horses  on  the 
farm,  the  first  reason  given,  and  confessedly  the  most  conclusive  one,  is  that  horses 
cannot  bear  the  treatment  that  they  always  must  get  from  negroes;  horses  are 
always  soon  foundered  or  crippled  by  them,  while  mules  will  bear  cudgelling,  and 
lose  a  meal  or  two  now  arid  then,  and  not  be  materially  injured,  and  the}'  do  not 
take  cold  or  get  sick,  if  neglected  or  overworked.  But  I  do  not  need  to  go  further 
than  to  the  window,  of  the  room  in  which  I  am  writing,  to  see  at  almost  any  time, 
treatment  of  cattle  that  would  insure  the  immediate  discharge  of  the  driver  by 
almost  any  farmer  owning  them  in  the  North."  In  another  State,  a  Southern  farmer 


44  FERTILITY  OF  THE  SOIL. 

natural  fertility  of  the  soil  is  so  great  as  to  compensate  for  the 
inferiority  of  the  cultivation,*  where  nature  does  so  much  as  to 
leave  little  for  art,  and  to  supersede  the  necessity  of  the  more 
difficult  contrivances  of  industry,  that  slave  labour  can  be 
turned  to  profitable  account.f 

Further,  slavery,  as  a  permanent  system,  has  need  not  merely 
of  a  fertile  soil,  but  of  a  practically  unlimited  extent  of  it. 
This  arises  from  the  defect  of  slave  labour  in  point  of  versatility. 
As  has  been  already  remarked,  the  difficulty  of  teaching  the  slave 
anything  is  so  great — the  result  of  the  compulsory  ignorance  in 
which  he  is  kept,  combined  with  want  of  intelligent  interest  in 
his  work — that  the  only  chance  of  rendering  his  labour  profita 
ble  is,  when  he  has  once  learned  a  lesson,  to  keep  him  to  that 
lesson  for  life.  Accordingly  where  agricultural  operations  are 
carried  on  by  slaves  the  business  of  each  gang  is  always  restrict 
ed  to  the  raising  of  a  single  product.;}:  Whatever  crop  be  best 

describes  to  him  "as  a  novelty,  a  plough  'with  a  sort  of  wing,  like,'  on  one  side, 
that  pushed  oft'  and  turned  over  a  slice  of  the  ground ;  from  which  it  appeared  that 
he  had,  until  recently,  never  seen  a  mould-board ;  the  common  ploughs  of  this 
country  being  constructed  on  the  same  principle  as  those  of  the  Chinese,  and  only 
rooting  the  ground  like  a  hog  or  a  mole — not  cleaving  and  turning."— Seaboard 
Slave  Stat<s,  pp.  46,  47,  402. 

*  Mr.  Russell  (pp.  164,  165)  states  that  the  soil  on  which  the  sea-island  cotton  is 
raised  is  "  poor,  consisting  for  the  most  part  of  light  sand ;"  but  this  is  scarcely  an 
exception  to  the  statement  in  the  text.  The  peculiar  qualities  of  \he  soil  in  ques 
tion,  and  the  high  price  which  its  products  are  consequently  enabled  to  command, 
render  it,  in  an  economic  sense,  "a  fertile  soil,"  however  it  may  be  designated  by 
an  agriculturist  as  "poor." 

f  In  a  debate  in  the  House  of  Lords  last  session  on  the  annexation  of  St.  Domingo 
by  Spain,  it  was  stated  by  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  that,  .in  reply  to  the  remon 
strances  of  the  British  government  relative  to  the  apprehended  introduction  of 
slavery  into  that  island,  the  Spanish  government  had  referred  to  the  great  fertility 
of  the  soil  of  St.  Dorningo,  which  renders  slavery  unnecessary  /  in  which  reasoning 
his  grace,  as  well  as  Lord  Brougham,  appeared  to  acquiesce. 

\  "The  culture  [of  tobacco]  being  once  established  [in  Virginia]  there  were  many 
reasons,"  says  Mr.  Olmsted,  "growing  out  of  the  social  structure  of  the  colony, 
which  for  more  than  a  century  kept  the  industry  of  the  Virginians  confined  to  this 
one  staple.  These  reasons  were  chiefly  the  difficulty  of  breaking  the  slaves,  or 
training  the]  bond-servants  to  new  methods  Of  labour ;  the  want  of  enterprise  or 
ingenuity  in  the  proprietors  to  contrive  other  profitable  occupations  for  them  ;  and 
the  difficulty  or  expense  of'distributing  the  guard  or  oversight,  without  which  it  was 
impossible  to  get  any  work  done  at  all,  if  the  labourers  were  separated,  or  worked 
in  any  other  way  than  side  by  side,  in  gangs,  as  in  the  tobacco  fields.  Owing  to 
these  causes,  the  planters  kept  on  raising  tobacco  with  hardty  sufficient  intermission 
to  provide  themselves  with  the  grossest  animal  sustenance,  though  often  by  reason 
of  the  excessive  quantity  raised,  scarcely  anything  could  be  got  for  it."  .  .  "  Tobacco 
is  not  now  considered  peculiarly  and  excessively  exhaustive  :  in  a  judicious  rotation, 
especially  as  a  preparation  for  wheat,  it  is  an  admirable  fallow-crop,  and  under  a 
scientific  system  of  agriculture,  it  is  grown  with  no  continued  detriment  to  the  soil. 
But  in  Virginia  it  was  grown  without  interruption  or  alteration,  and  the  fields  rapidly 
deteriorated  in  fertility.1' — Seaboard  Slave  States,  pp.  237,  238. 


EXE  A  USTINQ  EFFECTS  OF  SLA  VE  CULTURE.  45 

suited  to  the  character  of  the  soil  and  the  nature  of  slave  indus 
try,  whether  cotton,  tobacco,  sugar,  or  rice,  that  crop  is  culti 
vated,  and  that  crop  only.  Rotation  of  crops  is  thus  precluded 
by  the  conditions  of  the  case.  The  soil  is  tasked  again  and 
again  to  yield  the  same  product,  and  the  inevitable  result  fol 
lows.  After  a  short;  series  ..of  years  its  fertility  is  completely 
exhausted,  the  planter  abandons  the  ground  which  he  has  ren 
dered  worthless,  and  passes  on  to  seek  in  new  soils  for  that  fer 
tility  under  which  alone  the  agencies  at  his  disposal  can  be 
profitably  employed.  The  practical  results  of  the  system  are 
thus  described,  by  a  native  of  the  South : — u  I  can  show  you 
with  sorrow,  in  the  older  portions  of  Alabama,  and  in  my  native 
county  of  Madison,  the  sad  memorials  of  the  artless  and  exhaust 
ing  culture  of  cotton.  Our  small  planters,  after  taking  the 
cream  off  their  lands,  unable  to  restore  them  by  rest,  manures, 
or  other  .vise,  are  going  further  west  and  south  in  search  of  other 
virgin  lands,  which  they  may  and  will  despoil  and  impoverish 
in  like  manner.  Our  wealthier  planters,  with  greater  means 
and  no  more  skill,  are  buying  out  their  poorer  neighbours,  ex 
tending  their  plantation^,  and  adding  to  their  slave  force.  The 
wealthy  fe\v,  who  are  able  to  live  on  smaller  profits,  and  to  give 
their  blasted  fields  some  rest,  are  thus  pushing  off  the  many, 
who  are  merely  independent.  ...  In  traversing  that  county 
one  will  discover  numerous  farm-houses,  once  the  abode  of 
industrious  and  intelligent  freemen,  now  occupied  by  slaves,  or 
tenantless,  deserted,  and  dilapidated  ;  he  will  observe  fields, 
once  fertile,  now  unfenced,  abandoned,  and  covered  with  those 
evil  harbingers — fox-tail  and  broom-sedge  ;  he  will  see  the  moss 
growing  on  the  mouldering  walls  of  once  thrifty  villages;  and 
will  find  '  one  only  master  grasps  the  whole  domain'  that  once 
furnished  happy  homes  for  a  dozen  families.  Indeed,  a  country 
in  its  infancy,  where,  fifty  years  ago,  scarce  a  forest  tree  had 
been  felled  by  the  axe  of  the  pioneer,  is  already  exhibiting  the 
painful  signs  of  senility  and  decay  apparent  in  Virginia  and 
the  Carolinas  ;  the  freshness  of  its  agricultural  glory  is  gone, 
the  vigour  of  its  youth  is  extinct,  and  the  spirit  of  desolation 
seems  brooding  over  it."*  Even  in  Texas,  before  it  had  yet 
been  ten  years  under  the  dominion  of  this  devastating  system, 
Mr.  Olrnsted  tells  us  that  the  spectacle  so  familiar  and  so 
melancholy  in  all  the  older  Slave  States  was  already  not  unfre- 
quently  seen  by  the  traveller — "an  abandoned  plantation  of 


*  Address  of  the  Hon.  C.  C.  Clay,  jun.,  a  slaveholder  and  advocate  of  slavery, 
reported  by  the  author  in  De  Bow's  Review,  and  quoted  by  Olmsted,  Seaboard  Slava 
States,  p  576. 


46  ECONOMIC  SUCCESS  OF  SLA  VERT: 

4  worn  out'  fields  with  its  little  village  of  dwellings,  now  a  home 
only  for  wolves  and  vultures." 

Slave  cultivation,  therefore,  precluding  the  conditions  of  rota 
tion  of  crops  or  skilful  management,  tends  inevitably  to  exhaust 
the  land  of  a  country,  and  consequently  requires  for  its  perma 
nent  success  not  merely  a  fertile  soil  but  a  practically  unlimited 
extent  of  it.* 

To  sum  up,  then,  the  conclusions  at  which  we  have  arrived, 
the  successful  maintenance  of  slavery,  as  a  system  of  industry, 
requires  the  following  conditions : — 1st.  Abundance  of  fertile 
soil ;  and,  2nd.  A  crop  the  cultivation  of  which  demands  com 
bination  and  organization  of  labour  on  an  extensive  scale,  and 
admits  of  its  concentration.  It  is  owing  to  the  presence  of  these 
conditions  that  slavery  has  maintained  itself  in  the  Southern 
States  of  North  America,  and  to  their  absence  that  it  has  dis 
appeared  from  the  Northern  States. 


CHAPTER  III. 

INTERNAL    ORGANIZATION    OF   SLAVE    COMMUNITIES. 

THE  explanation  offered  in  the  last  chapter  of  the  success  and 
failure  of  slavery  in  different  portions  of  North  America 
resolved  itself  into  the  proposition,  that  in  certain  cases  the  in 
stitution  was  found  to  be  economically  profitable  while  it  proved 
unprofitable  in  others.  From  this  position — the  profitableness 
of  slavery  under  given  external  conditions — the  inference  is 
generally  made  by  those  who  advocate  or  look  with  indulgence 
on  the  system,  that  slavery  must  be  regarded  as  conducive  to  /j 
at  least  the  material  well-being  of  countries  in  which  these 
conditions  exist ;  and  these  conditions  being  admittedly  present 
in  the  Slave  States  of  North  America,  it  is  concluded  that  the 
abolition  of  slavery  in  those  states  would  necessarily  be  attended 
with  a  diminution  of  their  wealth,  and  by  consequence,  owing 

*  Olmsted's  Texas,  p.  xiv.  If  there  be  any  fact  upon  which  all  competent  wit 
nesses  to  the  condition  of  the  Slave  States  are  agreed  it  is  the  rapid  deterioration  of 
the  soil  under  slave  cultivation.  On  this  point  English,  French,  and  Americ;  n 
writers,  the  opponents  and  advocates  of  slavery,  are  at  one.  Yet  a  writer  in  the 
Saturday  Review  (Nov.  2,  1861)  does  not  hesitate,  on  his  own  unsupported  authority, 
to  characterize  this  belief  as  "  a  popular  fallacy."  If  it  be  a  fallacy,  it  is  certainly  not 
only  a  popular  but  a  plausible  one,  since  it  has  succeeded  in  deceiving  Miss  Marti- 
neau,  Olmsted,  Russell,  Stirling,  and  every  writer  of  the  least  pretension  to  author 
ity  on  the  subject,  no  matter  what  his  leanings.  It  is  for  the  teader  to  make  his 
choice  between  their  united  testimony  and  the  closet  experience  of  a  Saturday 
Reviewer. 


IN  WHAT  SENSE  CONCEDED.  47 

to  the  mode  in  which  the  interests  of  all  nations  are  identified 
through  commerce,  with  a  corresponding  injury  to  the  mate 
rial  interests  of  the  rest  of  the  world.  In  this  manner  it  is 
attempted  to  enlist  the  selfish  feelings  of  mankind  in  favour  of 
the  institution  ;  and  it  is  not  impossible  that  many  persons,  who 
would  be  disposed  to  condemn  it  upon  moral  grounds,  are  thus 
led  to  connive  at  its  existence.  It  will  therefore  be  desirable, 
before  proceeding  further  with  the  investigation  of  our  subject, 
to  ascertain  precisely  the  extent  of  the  admission  in  favour  of 
the  system  which  is  involved  in  the  foregoing  explanation  of 
its  success. 

And,  in  the  first  place,  it  must  be  remarked  that  the  profit 
ableness  which  has  been  attributed  to  slavery  is  profitableness 
estimated  exclusively  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  proprietor 
of  slaves.  Profitableness  in  this  sense  is  all  that  is  necessary 
to  account  for  the  introduction  and  maintenance  of  the  system 
(which  was  the  problem  with  which  alone  we  were  concerned), 
since  it  was  with  the  proprietors  that  the  decision  rested.  But 
those  who  are  acquainted  with  the  elementary  principles  which 
govern  the  distribution  of  wealth,  know  that  the  profits  of  capi 
talists  may  be  increased  by  the  same  process  by  which  the  gross 
revenue  of  a  country  is  diminished,  and  that  therefore  the  com 
munity  as  a  whole  may  be  impoverished  through  the  very 
same  means  by  which  a  portion  of  its  number  is  enriched.  The 
economic  success  of  slavery,  therefore,  is  perfectly  consistent 
with  the  supposition  that  it  is  prejudicial  to  the  material  well- 
being  of  the  country  where  it  is  established.  The  argument, 
in  short,  comes  to  this  :  the  interests  of  slave-masters — or  rather 
that  which  slave-masters  believe  to  be  their  interests — are  no 
iijpre  identical  with  the  interests  of  the  general  population  in 
slave  countries  in  the  matter  ot  wealth,  than  in  tiiat  ot  morals 
or  politics.  That  which  benefits,  or  seems  to  Denent,  the^one 
in  any  of  these  departments,  may  injure  the  other.  It  follows, 
therefore,  that  the  economic  advantages  possessed  by  slavery, 
which  were  the  inducement  to  its  original  establishment  and 
which  cause  it  still  to  be  upheld,  are  perfectly  compatible  with 
its  being  an  obstacle  to  the  industrial  development  of  the  coun 
try,  and  at  variance  with  the  best  interests,  material  as  well  as 
moral,  of  its  inhabitants. 

Further,  the  profitableness  which  has  been  attributed  to  sla 
very  does  not  even  imply  that  the  system  is  conducive  to  the 
interests  (except  in  the  narrowest  sense  of  the  word)  of  the  class 
for  whose  especial  behoof  it  exists.  Individuals  and  classes 
may  always  be  assumed  to  follow  their  own  interests  according 
to  their  lights  and  tastes  ;  but  that  which  their  lights  and  tastea 


48  ECONOMIC  SUCCESS  OF  SLA  VERY: 

point  out  as  their  interest  will  vary  with  the  degree  of  their 
intelligence  and  the  character  of  their  civilization.  When  the 
intelligence  of  a  class  is  limited  and  its  civilization  low,  the 
view  it  will  take  of  its  interests  will  be  correspondingly  narrow 
and  sordid.  Extravagant  and  undue  importance  will  be 
attached  to  the  mere  animal  pleasures.  A  small  gain  obtained 
by  coarse  and  obvious  methods  will  be  preferred  to  a  great  one 
which  requires  a  recourse  to  more  refined  expedients  ;  and  the 
future  well-being  of  the  race  will  be  regarded  as  of  less  impor 
tance  than  the  aggrandisement  of  the  existing  generation. 

But  our  admissions  in  favour  of  slavery  require  still  further 
qualification.  The  establishment  of  slavery  in  the  Southern 
States  was  accounted  for  by  its  superiority  in  an  economic  point 
of  view  over  free  labour,  in  the  form  in  which  free  labour 
existed  in  America  at  the  time  when  that  continent  was  settled. 
Now,  the  superiority  of  slavery  over  free  labour  to  which  its 
establishment  was  originally  owing,  is  by  no  means  to  te 
assumed  as  still  existing  in  virtue  of  the  fact  that  slavery  is  still 
maintained.  Of  two  systems  one  may  at  a  given  period  be 
more  profitable  than  the  other,  and  may  on  this  account  be 
established,  but  may  afterwards  cease  to  be  so,  and  yet  may 
nevertheless  continue  to  be  upheld,  either  from  habit,  or  from 
unwillingness  to  adopt  new  methods,  or  from  congeniality  with 
tastes  which  have  been  formed  under  its  influence.  It  is  a  dif 
ficult  and  slow  process  under  all  circumstances  to  alter  the  in 
dustrial  system  of  a  country ;  but  the  difficulty  of  exchanging 
one  form  of  free  industry  for  another  is  absolutely  inappreci 
able  when  compared  with  that  which  we  encounter  when  we 
attempt  to  substitute  free  for  servile  institutions.  It  is  there 
fore  quite  possible — how  far  the  case  is  actually  so  I  shall  after- 
Wards  examine — that  the  persistent  maintenance  of  the  system 
lat  the  present  day  may  be  due  less  to  its  economical  advantages 
than  to  the  habits  and  tastes  it  may  have  engendered,  and  to 
the  enormous  difficulty  of  getting  rid  of  it.  Since  the  settle 
ment  of  the  Southern  States  a  vast  change  has  taken  place  in 
the  American  continent.  Free  labour,  which  was  then  scarce 
and  costly,  has  now  in  many  of  the  large  towns  become  super 
abundant;  and  it  is  quite  possible  that,  even  with  external 
conditions  so  favourable  to  slavery  as  the  southern  half  of  North 
America  undoubtedly  presents,  free  labour  would  now,  on  a  fair 
trial,  be  found  more  than  a  match  for  its  antagonist.  Such  a 
trial,  however,  is  not  possible  under  the  present  regime  of  the 
South.  Slavery  is  in  possession  of  the  field,  and  enjoys  all  the 
advantages  which  possession  in  such  a  contest  confers. 

The  concession  then  in  favour  of  slavery,  involved  in  the 


IN  WHAT  SENSE  CONCEDED.  49 

explanation  given  of  its  definitive  establishment  in  certain  por 
tions  of  North  America,  amounts  to  this,  that  under  certain 
conditions  of  soil  and  climate,  cultivation  by  slaves  may  for  a 
time  yield  a  larger  net  revenue  than  cultivation  by  certain  forms 
of  free  labour.  This  is  all  that  needs  to  be  assumed  to  nccount 
for  the  original  establishment  of  slavery.  But  the  maintenance 
of  the  institution  at  the  present  day  does  not  imply  even  this 
quantum  of  advantage  in  its  favour;  since,  owing  to  the 
immense  difficulty  of  getting  rid  of  it  when  once  established  on 
an  extensive  scale,  the  reasons  for  its  continuance  (regarding 
the  question  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  slaveholders)  may, 
where  it  has  once  obtained  a  firm  footing,  prevail  over  those 
for  its  abolition,  even  though  it  be 'far  interior  as  a  productive 
instrument  to  free-labour.  The  most,  therefore,  that  can  be 
inferred  from  the  existence  of  the  system  at  the  present  day  is 
that  it  is  self-supporting. 

Having  now  cleared  the  ground  from  the  several  filse  infer 
ences  with  which  the  economic  success  of  slavery,  such  as  it  isv 
is  apt  to  be  surrounded,  I  proceed  to  trace  the  consequences,, 
economic,  social,  and  political,  which  flow  from  the  institution.. 

The  comparative  anatomist,  by  reasoning  on  those  fixed  rela 
tions  between  the  different  parts  of  the  animal  frame  which  his 
science  reveals  to  him,  is  able  from  a  fragment  of  a  tooth  or 
bone  to  determine  the  form,  dimensions,  and  habits  of  the  crea 
ture  to  which  it  belonged  ;  and  with  no  less  accuracy,  it  seems 
to  me,  may  a  political  economist,  by  reasoning  on  the  economic 
character  of  slavery  and  its  peculiar  connexion  with  the  soil, 
deduce  its  leading  social  and  political  attributes,  and  almost 
construct,  by  way  of  a  priori  argument,  the  entire  system  of 
the  society  of  which  it  forms  the  foundation.  A  brief  conside 
ration  of  the  economic  principles  on  which,  as  we  have  seen  in 
a  former  chapter,  slavery  supports  itself,  will  enable  us  co  illus 
trate  this  remark. 

It  was  then  seen  tlmtjglflvftjahmir  is,  fonnrvthp.  rmfnvP  n£^Vift 

case,  unskilled  labour ;  and  it  is  evident  that  this  circumstance 
at  once  excludes  it  from  the  field  of  manufacturing  and  mecha 
nical  industry.  Where  a  workman  is  kept  in  compulsory  igno 
rance,  and  is,  at  the  same  time,  without  motive  for  exerting  his 
mental  faculties,  it  is  quite  impossible  that  he  should  take  part 
with  efficiency  in  the  difficult  and  delicate  operations  which 
most  manufacturing  and  mechanical  processes  involve.  The 
care  and  dexterity  which  the  management  of  machinery 
requires  is  not  to  be  obtained; from  him,  and  he  would  often  do 
more  damage  in  an  hour  than  the  produce  of  his  labour  for  a 
year  would  cover.  Slavery,  therefore,  at  least  in  its  modern 

4 


50      AGRICULTURE—THE  SOLE  CAREER  FOR  SLA  VERY. 

form,  has  never  been,  and  can  never  be,  employed  with  success 
in  manufacturing  industry.  And  no  less  plain  is  it  that  it  is 
unsuited  to  the  functions  of  commerce ;  for  the  soul  of  com 
merce  is  tlie  spirit  of  enterprise,  and  this  is  ever  found  wanting 
in  communities  where  slavery  exists :  their  prevailing  charac 
teristics  are  subjection  to  routine  and  contempt  for  money-mak 
ing  pursuits.  Moreover,  the  occupations  of  commerce  are 
absolutely  prohibitive  of  the  employment  of  servile  labour.  A 
mercantile  marine  composed  of  slaves  is  a  form  of  industry 
which  the  world  has  not  yet  seen.  Mutinies  in  mid-ocean  and 
desertions  the  moment  the  vessel  touched  at  foreign  ports  would 
quickly  reduce  the  force  to  a  cipher. 

Slavery,  therefore,  excluded  by  these  causes  from  the  field 
of  manufactures  and  commerce,  finds  its  natural  career  in  agri 
culture  ;  and,  from  what  has  been  already  established  respect 
ing  the  peculiar  qualities  of  slave  labour,  we  may  easily  divine 
the  form  which  agricultural  industry  will  assume  under  a  ser 
vile  regime.  The  single  merit  of  slave  labour  as  an  industrial 
instrument  consists,  as  we  have  seen,  in  its  capacity  for  organi 
zation — its  susceptibility,  that  is  to  say,  of  being  adjusted  with 
precision  to  the  kind  of  work  to  be  done,  and  of  being  directed 
on  a  comprehensive  plan  towards  some  distinctly  conceived 
end.  ISTow  to  give  scope  to  this  quality,  the  scale  on  which 
industry  is  carried  on  must  be  extensive,  and,  to  carry  on  indus 
try  on  an  extensive  scale,  large  capitals  are  required.  Large 
capitalists  will  therefore  have,  in  slave  communities,  a  special 
and  peculiar  advantage  over  small  capitalists  beyond  that 
which  they  enjoy  in  countries  where  labour  is  free.  But  there 
is  another  circumstance  which  renders  a  considerable  capital 
still  more  an  indispensable  condition  to  the  successful 
conduct  of  industrial  operations  in  slave  countries.  A 
capitalist  who  employs  free  labour  needs  for  the  support  of 
his  labour  force  a  sum  sufficient  to  cover  the  amount  of  their 
wages  during  the  interval  which  elapses  from  the  commence 
ment  of  their  operations  until  the  sale  of  the  produce  which 
results  from  them.  But  the  capitalist  employing  slave  labour 
requires  not  merely  this  sum — represented  in  his  case  by  the 
food,  clothing,  and  shelter  provided  for  his  slaves  during  the 
corresponding  period — but,  in  addition  to  this,  a  sum  sufficient 
to  purchase  the  fee-simple  of  his  entire  slave  force.  For  the 
conduct  of  a  given  business,  therefore,  it  is  obvious  that  the 
'employer  of  slave  labour  will  require  a  much  larger  capital 
than  the  employer  of  free  labour.  The  capital  of  the  one  will 
represent  merely  the  current  outlay  ;  while  the  capital  of  the 
other  will  represent,  in  addition  to  this,  the  future  capabilities 


RESULTS:  MAGNITUDE  OF  PLANTATIONS.  51 

of  tne  productive  instrument.  The  one  will  represent  the  inte 
rest,  the  other  the  principal  ami  interest,  of  the  labour  em 
ployed.*  Owing  to  these  causes  large  capitals  are,  relatively 
to  small,  more  profitable,  and  are,  at  the  same  time,  absolutely 
more  required  in  countries  of  slave,  than  in  countries  of  free 
labour.  It  happens,  however,  that  capital  is  in  slave  countries  a 
particularly  scarce  commodity,  owing  partly  to  the  exclusion 
from  such  countries  of  many  modes  of  creating  it — manufactures 
t 

*  The  operation  of  the  economic  principle  which  I  have  endeavoured  to  explain 
is  well  illustrated  in  the  following  case  put  by  Mr.  Olmsted  — 

"  Let  us  suppose  two  recent  immigrants,  one  in  Texas,  the  other  in  the  yo-mg 
free  State  of  Iowa,  to  have  both,  at  the  same  time,  a  considerable  sum  of  money — 
say  tive  thousand  dollars — at  disposal.  Land  has  been  previously  purchased,  a  hasty 
dwelling  of  logs  constructed,  and  ample  crops  for  sustenance  harvested.  Each  lias 
found  communication  with  his  market  interrupted  during  a  portion  of  the  year  by 
floods ;  each  needs  an  ampler  and  better  house ;  each  desires  to  engage  a  larger  part 
of  his  land  in  profitable  production ;  each  needs  some  agricultural  machinery  or  im 
plements  ;  in  the  neighbourhood  of  each,  a  church,  a  school,  a  grist-mill,  and  a 
branch  railroad  are  proposed.  Each  may  be  supposed  to  have  previously  obtained 
the  necessary  materials  for  his  desired  constructions ;  and  to  need  immediately  the 
services  of  a  carpenter.  The  Texan,  unable  to  hire  one  in  the  neighbourhood, 
orders  his  agent  in  Houston  or  New  Orleans  to  buy  him  one:  when  he  arrives,  he 
has  cost  not  less  than  two  of  the  five  thousand  dollars.  The  lowan,  in  the  same 
predicament,  writes  to  a  friend  in  the  East  or  advertises  in  the  newspapers,  that  he 
is  ready  to  pay  better  wages  than  carpenters  can  get  in  the  older  settlements ;  and 
a  young  man,  whose  only  capital  is  in  his  hands  and  his  wits,  glad  to  come  where 
there  is  a  glut  of  food  and  a  dearth  of  labour,  soon  presents  himself.  To  construct 
a  causeway  and  a  bridge,  and  to  clear,  fence,  and  break  up  the  land  he  desires  to 
bring  into  cultivation,  the  Texan  will  need  three  more  slaves — and  he  gets  them  as 
before,  thereby  investing  all  his  money.  The  lowan  has  only  to  let  his  demand  be 
known,  or,  at  most,  to  advance  a  small  sum  to  the  public  conveyances,  and  all  the 
labourers  he  requires — independent  small  capitalists  of  labour — gladly  bring  their 
only  commodity  to  him  and  offer  it  as  a  loan,  on  his  promise  to  pay  a  better  inte 
rest,  or  wages,  for  it  than  Eastern  capitalists  are  willing  to  do.  The  lowan  next 
sends  for  the  implements  and  machinery  which  will  enable  him  to  make  the 
best  use  of  the  labour  he  has  engaged.  The  Texan  tries  to  get  on  another 
year  without  them,  or  employs  such  rude  substitutes  as  his  stupid,  uninstructed, 
and  uninterested  slaves  can  readily  make  in  his  ill-furnished  plantation  work 
shop.  The  lowan  is  able  to  contribute  liberally  to  aid  in  the  construction  of 
the  church,  the  school-house,  the  mill,  and  the  railroad.  His  labourers,  appreciating 
the  value  of  the  reputation  they  may  acquire  for  honesty,  good  judgment,  skill,  and 
industry,  do  not  need  constant  superintendence,  and  he  is  able  to  call  on  his  neigh 
bours  and  advise,  encourage,  and  stimulate  them.  Thus  the  church,  the  school, 
and  the  railroad  are  soon  in  operation,  and  with  them  is  brought  rapidly  into  play 
other  social  machinery,  which  makes  much  luxury  common  and  cheap  to  all.  The 
Texan,  if  solicited  to  assist  in  similar  enterprises,  answers  truly,  that  cotton  is  yet 
too  low  to  permit  him  to  invest  money  where  it  does  not  promise  to  be  immediately 
and  directly  productive.  The  lowan  may  still  have  one  or  two  thousand  dollars,  to 
be  lent  to  merchants,  mechanics,  or  manufacturers,  who  are  disposed  to  establish 
themselves  near  him.  With  the  aid  of  this  capital,  not  only  various  minor  conve 
niences  are  brought  into  the  neighbourhood,  but  useful  information,  scientific,  agri 
cultural,  and  political ;  and  commodities,  the  use  of  which  is  educative  of  taste  and 
the  finer  capacities  of  our  nature,  are  attractively  presented  to  the  people.  The 
Texan  mainly  does  without  these  things.  *  He  confines  the  imports  of  his  plantation 


52  UNEQUAL  DISTRIBUTION  OF  WEALTH. 

and  commerce  for  example — which  are  open  to  free  communi 
ties,  and  partly  to  what  is  also  a  consequence  of  the  institution — 
the  unthrifty  habits  of  the  upper  cla-ses.  We  arrive  therefore 
at  this  singular  conclusion,  that,  while  large  capitals  in  coun 
tries  of  slave  labor  enjoy  peculiar  advantages,  and  while  the 
aggregate  capital  needed  in  them  for  the  conduct  of  a  given 
amount  of  industry  is  greater  than  in  countries  where  labour 
is  free,  capital  nevertheless  in  such  countries  is  exceptionally 
scarce.  From  this  state  of  things  result  two  phenomena  which 
may  be  regarded  as  typical  of  industry  carried  on  by  slaves — 
the  magnitude  of  the  plantations  and  the  indebtedness  of  the 
planters.  Wherever  negro  slavery  has  prevailed  in  modern 
times,  these  two  phenomena  will  be  found  to  exist.  They  form 
the  burthen  of  most  of  what  has  been  written  on  our  West 
Indian  Islands  while  under  the  regime  of  slavery  ;  and  they 
are  not  less  prominently  the  characteristic  features  of  the 
industrial  system  of  the  Southern  States.  "Our  wealthie) 
planters,"  says  Mr.  Clay,  "  are  buying  out  their  poorer  neigh 
hours,  extending  their  plantations,  and  adding  to  their  slave 
force.  The  wealthy  few,  who  are  able  to  live  on  smaller  pro 
fits,  and  to  give  their  blasted  fields  some  rest,  are  thus  pushing 
off  the  many  who  are  merely  independent."  At  the  same 
time  these  wealthier  planters  are,  it  is  well  known,  very  gene 
rally  in  debt,  the  forthcoming  crops  being  for  the  most  part 
mortgaged  to  Northern  capitalists,  who  make  the  needful 
advances,  and  who  thus  become  the  instruments  by  which  a 
considerable  proportion  of  the  slave  labour  of  the  South  is 
maintained.  The  tendency  of  things,  therefore,  in  slave  coun 
tries  is  to  a  very  unequal  distribution  of  wealth.  The  large 
capitalists,  having  a  steady  advantage  over  their  smaller  com 
petitors,  engross,  with  the  progress  of  time,  a  larger  and  larger 
proportion  of  the  aggregate  wealth  of  the  country,  and  gra 
dually  acquire  the  control  of  its  collective  industry.  Mean 
time,  amongst  the  ascendant  class  a  condition  of  general 
indebtedness  prevails. 

But  we  may  carry  our  deductions  from  the  economic  charac 
ter  of  slavery  somewhat  further.  It  has  been  seen  that  slave 
cultivation  can  only  maintain  itself  where  the  soil  is  rich, 
while  it  produces  a  steady  deterioration  of  the  soils  on  which 
it  is  employed.  This  being  so,  it  is  evident  that  in  countries 

almost  entirely  to  slaves,  corn,  bacon,  salt,  sugar,  molasses,  tobacco,  clothing,  medi 
cine,  hoes,  and  plough-iron.  Even  if  he  had  the  same  capital  to  spare,  he  would 
live  in  far  less  comfort  than  the  lovvan,  because  of  the  want  of  local  shops  and 
efficient  systems  of  public  conveyance  which  cheapen  the  essentials  of  comfort  for 
the  latter." — Texas,  pp.  viil-x. 


WASTE  LANDS  IN  SLA  VE  COUNTRIES.  53 

of  average  fertility  but  a  small  portion  of  the  whole  area  will 
be  available  for  this  mode  of  cultivation,  and  that  this  portion 
is  ever  becoming  smaller,  since,  as  the  process  of  deterioration 
proceeds,  more  soils  are  constantly  reaching  that  condition  in 
which  servile  labour  ceases  to  be  profitable.  What,  then,  is  to 
become  of  the  remainder — that  large  portion  of  the  country 
which  is  either  naturally  too  poor  for  cultivation  by  slaves,  or 
which  has  been  made  so  by  its  continued  employment?  It 
will  be  thought,  perhaps,  that  this  may  be  worked  by  free  la 
bour,  and  that  by  a  judicious  combination  of  both  forms  of  in 
dustry  the  whole  surface  of  the  country  may  be  brought  to 
the  highest  point  of  productiveness.  But  this  is  a  moral  im 
possibility  :  it  is  precluded  by  what,  we  shall  find,  is  a  cardinal 
feature  in  the  structure  of  slave  societies — their  exclusiverie«s. 
In  free  countries  industry  is  the  path  to  independence,  to 
wealth,  to  social  distinction,  and  is  therefore  held  in  honour ; 
in  slave  countries  it  is  the  vocation  of  the  slave,  and  becomes 
therefore  a  badge  of  degradation.  The  free  labourer,  con 
sequently,  who  respects  his  calling  and  desires  to  be  respected, 
instinctively  shuns  a  country  where  industry  is  discredited, 
where  he  cannot  engage  in  those  pursuits  by  which  wealth  and 
independence  are  to  be  gained  without  placing  himself  on  a 
level  with  the  lowest  of  mankind.  Free  and  slave  labour 
are,  therefore,  incapable  of  being  blended  together  in  the 
same  system.  Where  slavery  exists  it  excludes  all  other 
forms  of  industrial  life.  "  The  traveller,"  says  De  Tocque- 
ville,  "  who  floats  clown  the  current  of  the  Ohio,  may  be  said  to 
sail  between  liberty  and  servitude.  Upon  the  left  bank  of  the 
stream  the  population  is  sparse ;  from  time  to  time  one 
descries  a  troop  of  slaves  loitering  in  the  half-desert  fields; 
the  primaeval  forest  recurs  at  every  turn  ;  society  seems  to  be 
asleep,  man  to  be  idle,  and  nature  alone  offers  a  scene  of 
activity  and  of  life.  From  the  right  bank,  on  the  contrary, 
a  confused  hum  is  heard  which  proclaims  the  presence  of 
industry ;  the  fields  are  covered  with  abundant  harvests  ;  the 
elegance  of  the  dwellings  announces  the  taste  and  activity  of 
the  labourer ;  and  man  appears  to  be  in  the  enjoyment  of  that 
wealth  and  contentment  which  is  the  reward  of  labour.  Upon 
the  left  bank  of  the  Ohio  labour  is  confounded  with  the  idea  of 
slavery,  upon  the  right  bank  it  is  identified  with  that  of  pros 
perity  and  improvement;  on  the  one  side  it  is  degraded,  on  the 
other  it  is  honoured;  on  the  former  territory  no  white  labourers 
can  be  found,  for  they  would  be  afraid  of  assimilating  themselves 
to  the  negroes ;  on  the  latter  no  one  is  idle,  for  the  white  popu 
lation  extends  its  activity  and  its  intelligence  to  every  kind  of 


54  SOCIAL  CONSEQUENCES. 

employment.  Thus  the  men  whose  task  it  is  to  cultivate  the 
rich  soil  of  Kentucky  are  ignorant  and  lukewarm ;  whilst  those 
who  are  enlightened  either  do  nothing,  or  pass  over  into  the 
State  of  Ohio,  where  they  may  work  without  dishonour."* 

Agriculture,  therefore,  when  carried  on  by  slaves,  being  by 
a  sure  law  restricted  to  the  most  fertile  portions  of  the  land, 
and  no  other  form  of  systematic  industry  being  possible  where 
slavery  is  established,  it  happens  that  there  are  in  all  slave 
countries  vast  districts,  becoming,  under  the  deteriorating 
effects  of  slave  industry,  constantly  larger,  which  are  wholly 
surrendered  to  nature,  and  remain  for  ever  as  wilderness.  This 
is  a  characteristic  feature  in  the  political  economy  of  the  Slave 
States  of  the  South,  and  is  attended  with,  social  consequences 
of  the  most  important  kind.  For  the  tracts  thus  left,  or  made, 
desolate,  become  in  time  the  resort  of  a  numerous  horde  of 
people,  who,  too  poor  to  keep  slaves  and  too  proud  to  work, 
prefer  a  vagrant  and  precarious  life  spent  in  the  desert  to  en 
gaging  in  occupations  which  would  associate  them  with  the 
slaves  whom  they  despise.  In  the  Southern  States  no  less  than 
five  millions  of  human  beings  are  now  said  to  exist  in  this  man 
ner  in  a  condition  little  removed  from  savage  life,  eking  out  a 
wretched  subsistence  by  hunting,  by  fishing,  by  hiring  them 
selves  out  for  occasional  jobs,  by  plunder.  Combining  the 


*  Democracy  in  America,  vol.  ii.  pp.  222,  223.  "  The  negroes,"  says  Mr.  Olm- 
sted,  "  are  a  degraded  people — degraded  not  merely  by  position,  but  actually  im 
moral,  low-lived;  without  healthy  ambition ;  but  little  influenced  by  high  moral  con 
siderations  ;  and,  in  regard  to  labour,  not  at  all  affected  by  regard  for  duty.  This  is 
universally  recognized,  and  debasing  fear,  not  cheering  hope,  is  in  general  allowed 
to  be  their  only  stimulant  to  exertion.  .  .  .  Now,  let  the  white  labourer  come  here 
from  the  North  or  from  Europe — his  nature  demands  a  social  life — shall  he  associate 
with  the  poor,  slavish,  degraded,  low-lived,  despised,  unambitious  negro,  with  whom 
labour  and  punishment  are  almost  synonymous?  or  shall  he  be  the  friend  and  com 
panion  of  the  white  man,  in  whose  mind  labour  is  habitually  associated  with  no  ideas 
of  duty,  responsibility,  comfort,  luxury,  cultivation,  or  elevation  and  expansion  either 
of  mind  or  estate,  as  it  is  where  the  ordinary  labourer  is  a  free  man — free  to  use  his 
labour  as  a  means  of  obtaining  all  these  and  all  else  that  is  to  be  respected,  honoured, 
or  envied  in  the  world  ?  Associating  with  either  or  both,  is  it  not  inevitable  that 
he  will  be  rapidly  demoralized — that  he  will  soon  learn  to  hate  labour,  give  as  little 
of  it  for  his  hire  as  he  can,  become  base,  cowardly,  faithless — '  worse  than  a  nigger  ?' 

.  .  When  we  reflect  how  little  the  great  body  of  our  workingmen  are  consciously 
much  affected  by  moral  considerations  in  their  movements,  one  is  tempted  to  sus 
pect  that  the  Almighty  has  endowed  the  great  transatlantic  migration  with  a  new 
instinct,  by  which  it  is  unconsciously  repelled  from  the  demoralizing  and  debilitating 
influence  of  slavery,  as  migrating  birds  have  sometimes  been  thought  to  be  from  pes 
tilential  regions.  I  know  not  else  how  to  account  for  the  remarkable  indisposition 
to  be  sent  to  Virginia  which  I  have  seen  manifested  by  poor  Irishmen  and  Germans, 
who  could  have  known.  I  think,  no  more  of  the  evils  of  slavery  to  the  whites  in  the 
Slave  States,  than  the  slaves  themselves  know  of  the  effect  of  conscription  in  France, 
and  who  certainly  could  have  been  governed  by  no  considerations  of  self-respect." 


THE  "  MEAN  WHITES."  55 

restlessness  and  contempt  for  regular  industry  peculiar  to  the 
savage  with  the  vices  of  \\\Q  proletaire  of  civilized  communities, 
these  people  make  up  a  class  at  once  degraded  and  dangerous, 
and  constantly  reinforced  as  they  are  by  all  that  is  idle,  worth 
less,  and  lawless  among  the  population  of  the  neighbouring 
Slates,  form  an  inexhaustible  preserve  of  ruffianism,  ready  at 
hand  for  all  the  worst  purposes  of  Southern  ambition.  The 
planters  complain  of  these  people  for  their  idleness,  for  corrupt 
ing  their  slaves, for  their  thievish  propensities;  but  they  cannot 
dispense  with  them;  for,  in  truth,  they  perform  an  indispensa 
ble  function  in  the  economy  of  slave  societies,  of  which  they 
are  at  once  the  victims  and  the  principal  supports.  It  is  from 
their  ranks  that  those  filibustering  expeditions  are  recruited 
which  have  been  found  so  effective  an  instrument  in  extending 
the  domain  of  the  Slave  Power ;  they  furnish  the  Border  Ruffians 
who  in  the  colonization  struggle  with  the  Northern  States  contend 
with  Freesoilers  on  the  Territories;  and  it  is  to  their  antipathy 
to  the  negroes  that  the  planters  securely  trust  for  repressing 
every  attempt  at  servile  insurrection.  Such  are  the  "  mean 
whites  "  or  *'  white  trash  "  of  the  Southern  States.  They  com 
prise  several  local  subdivisions,  the  "  crackers,"  the  "  sandhill- 
era,"  the  "  clay-eaters,"  and  many  more.  The  class  is  not  pecu 
liar  to  anyone  locality,  but  is  the  invariable  outgrowth  of  negro 
slavery  wherever  it  has  raised  its  head  in  modern  times.  It 
may  be  seen  in  the  new  State  of  Texas*  as  well  as  in  the  old 
settled  districts  of  Virginia,  the  Carolinas,  and  Georgia;  in  the 
"West  India  Islandsf  no  less  than  on  the  Continent.  In  the 
States  of  the  Confederacy  it  comprises,  as  I  have  said,  five  mil 
lions  of  human  beings — about  seven-tenths  of  the  whole  white 
population. 

The  industry  of  the  Slave  States,  we  have  seen,  is  exclusively 
agricultural;  and  the  mode  of  agriculture  pursued  in  them  has 
been  represented  as  partial,  perfunctory,  and  exhaustive.  It 
must,  however,  be  admitted  that,  to  a  certain  extent,  this  de 
scription  is  applicable  to  the  industrial  condition  of  all  new 
countries,  and  will  find  .illustrations  in  the  western  regions  of 
the  Free  States ;  and  it  may  therefore  occur  to  the  reader  that 
the  economical  conditions  which  I  have  described  are  rather 
the  consequence  of  the  recent  settlement  of  the  societies  where 
they  prevail  than  specific  results  of  the  system  of  slavery.  But 
it  is  easy  to  show  that  this  view  of  the  case  is  fallacious,  and 
proceeds  from  confounding  what  is  essential  in  slave-industry 
with  an  accidental  and  temporary  feature  in  the  industrial 

*  Olmsted's  Texas,  p.  xvii. ;  note. 

f  Merivale's  Colonization  and  the  Colonies,  p.  83 ;  note,  new  ed. 


66  FREE  IND  USTR T  IN  NEW  CO UNTRIES. 

career  of  free  communities.  The  settlers  in  new  countries, 
whether  they  be  slave-holders  or  free  peasants,  naturally  fix  in 
the  first  instance  on  the  richest  and  most  conveniently  situated 
Boils,  and  find  it  more  profitable  to  cultivate  these  lightly,  avail 
ing  themselves  to  the  utmost  of  the  resources  which  nature 
offers,  than  to  force  cultivation  on  inferior  soils  after  the  manner 
of  high  fanning  in  old  countries.  So  far  the  cases  are  similar. 
But  here  lies  the  difference.  The  labour  of  free  peasants, 
though  of  course  more  productive  on  rich  than  on  inferior  soils, 
is  not  necessarily  confined  to  the  former ;  whereas  this  is  the 
case  with  the  labour  of  slaves.  According,  therefore,  as  free 
peasants  multiply,  after  the  best  soils  have  been  appropriated, 
the  second  best  are  taken  into  cultivation;  and  as  they  multi 
ply  still  more,  cultivation  becomes  still  more  general,  until 
ultimately  all  the  cultivatable  portions  of  the  country  are 
brought  within  the  domain  of  industry.  But  as  slaves  multi 
ply,  their  masters  cannot  have  recourse  to  inferior  soils:  they 
must  find  for  them  new  soils :  the  mass  of  the  country,  there 
fore,  remains  uncultivated,  and  the  population  increases  only 
by  dispersion.  Again,  although  the  mode  of  cultivation 
pursued  by  free  peasants  in  new  lands  is  generally  far  from 
what  would  be  approved  of  by  the  scientific  farmers  of  old 
countries,  still  it  does  not  exhaust  the  soil  in  the  same  manner 
as  cultivation  carried  on  by  slaves.  "I  hold  myself  justified," 
says  Mr.  Olmsted,  "in  asserting  that  the  natural  elements  of 
wealth  in  the  soil  of  Texas  will  have  been  more  exhausted  in 
ten  years,  and  with  them  the  rewards  offered  by  Providence  to 
labour  will  have  been  more  lessened,  than  without  slavery  would 
have  been  the  case  in  two  hundred."  .  .  .  "After  two  hundred 
years'  occupation  of  similar  soils  by  a  free-labouring  communi 
ty,  I  have  seen  no  such  evidences  of  waste  as  in  Texas  I  have 
after  ten  years  of  slavery."*  .  .  .  "Waste  of  soil  a.nd  injudi 
cious  application  of  labour  are  common  in  the  agriculture  of  the 
North  ;  .  .  .  but  nowhere  is  the  land  with  what  is  attached  to 
it  now  less  promising  and  suitable  for  the  residence  of  a  refined 
and  civilized  people  than  it  was  befone  the  operations,  which 
have  been  attended  with  the  alleged  waste,  were  commenced." 
The  same  is  not  true  of  Virginia  or  the  Carolinas,  or  of  any 
other  district  where  slavery  has  predominated  for  an  historic 
period.  "The  land  in  these  cases  is  positively  less  capable  of 
-sustaining  a  dense  civilized  community  than  if  no  labour  at  all 
had  been  expended  upon  it."f  The  superficial  and  careless 
mode  of  agriculture  pursued  by  free  peasants  in  new  countries 

*  Olrasted's  Texas,  p.  xiv.  \  Ibid.  p.  xviii. ;  note. 


COMPARED  WITH  SLAVE  INDUSTRY.  57 

is,  in  short,  accidental  and  temporary,  the  result  of  the  excep 
tional  circumstances  \\\  which  they  are  placed,  and  gives  place 
to  a  bette-r  system  as  population  increases  and  interior  soils  are 
brought  under  the  plough  ;  but  the  superficiality  and  exhaus- 
tiveness  of  agriculture  carried  on  by  slaves  are  essential  and 
unalterable  qualities,  rendering  all  cultivation  impossible  but 
that  which  is  carried  on  upon  the  richest  soils,  and  irremovable 
by  the  growth  of  population,  since  they  are  an  effectual  bar  to  this. 
M.J  position  is,  that  in  slave  communities  agriculture  is  sub 
stantially*  the  sole  occupation,  while  this  single  pursuit  is  pre 
maturely  arrested  in  its  development,  never  reaching  those 
soils  of  secondary  quality  which,  under  a  system  of  free 
incki.-stry,  would,  with  the  growth  of  society,  be  brought  under 
cultivation  ;  and  of  this  statement  the  industrial  history  of  the 
Free  and  Slave  States  forms  one  continued  illustration.  The 
state  of  Virginia,  for  example,  is  the  longest  settled  state  in  the 
Union,  and  for  general  productive  purposes,  one  of  the  most 
richly  endowed.  It  possesses  a  fertile  soil,  a  genial  climate; 
it  is  rich  in  mineral  productions,  in  iron,  in  copper,  in  coal — 
the  coal  fields  of  Virginia  being  amongst  the  most  extensive 
in  the  world,  and  the  coal  of  superior  quality  ;  it  is  approached 
by  one  of  the  noblest  bays ;  it  is  watered  by  numerous  rivers, 
some  of  them  navigable  for  considerable  distances,  and  most 
of  them  capable  of  affording  abundance  of  water  power  for 
manufacturing  purposes.f  With  such  advantages,  Virginia, 
a  region  as  lar<re  as  England,  could  not  fail,  in  a  career  of  two 
hundred  and  fifty  years,  under  a  system  of  free  industry,  to 
become  a  state  of  great  wealth,  population,  and  power.  Her 
mineral  and  manufacturing,  as  well  as  her  agricultural,  re 
sources  would  be  brought  into  requisition;  her  population 
would  increase  with  rapidity,  and  become  concentrated  in 
large  towns ;  her  agriculture  would  be  extended  over  the 
whole  surface  of  the  country.  But  what  is  the  result  of  the 
experiment  under  a  slave  regime  f  After  a  national  life  of 
two  hundred  and  fifty  years  the  whole  free  population  is  still 
under  one  million  souls.;):  Eight-tenths  of  her  industry  are 

*  I  do  not  mean  to  assert  that  there  is  no  mechanical  or  manufacturing  industry 
carried  on  in  the  Slave  States.     In  some  of  the  principal  towns,  no  doubt,  there  is, 
though  to  a  limited  extent,  and  here  it  is  chiefly  the  result  of  Northern  enterprise. 
What  I  intend  to  say  is,  that  the  amount  of  industry  of  this  kind  is  so  small,  that 
in  speaking  of  the  resources  of  national  wealth,  it  need  not  be  taken  account  o£ 
f  Olmsted's  Seaboard  Slave  States,  pp.  165,  166. 
\  The  actual  numbers  were  in  1850: — 

Whites 894,800 

Free  coloured   ....     54,333 

Total  free      .     .     .  9 4  9, 133 


58          INDUSTRIAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  SLA  VE  STATES 

devoted  to  agriculture ;  and  the  progress  which  has  been  made 
in  this,  the  principal  pursuit,  may  be  estimated  by  the  signi 
ficant  fact,  that  the  average  price  per  acre  of  cultivated  land 
in  Virginia  is  no  more  than  eight  dollars.  Contrast  this  with 
the  progress  made  in  fifty  years  by  the  free  state  of  Ohio — a 
state  smaller  in  area  than  Virginia,  and  inferior  in  variety  of 
resources.  Ohio  was  admitted  as  a  state  into  the  Union  in 
1802,  and  in  1850  its  population  numbered  nearly  two  mil 
lions.*  Like  Virginia  it  is  chiefly  agricultural,  though  not 
from  the  same  causes,  Ohio  being  from  its  resources  and  in 
ternal  position  adapted  in  a  peculiar  manner  to  agriculture, 
while  the  resources  of  Virginia  would  fit  it  equally  for  manu 
factures  or  commerce ;  but,  while  the  average  price  of  culti 
vated  land  per  acre  in  Virginia,  after  an  agricultural  career  of 
two  hundred  and  fifty  years,  is  eight  dollars,  the  average  price 
in  Ohio,  after  a  career  of  fifty  years,  is  twenty  dollars.  The 
contrast  will  of  course  only  become  more  striking,  if,  instead 
of  a  free  state  of  fifty  years'  growth,  we  take  one  more  nearly 
on  a  par  in  the  duration  of  its  career  with  the  slave  state  with 
which  it  is  compared.  New  Jersey,  for  example,  was  founded 
about  the  same  time  as  Virginia.  Its  climate,  Mr.  Olmsted  tells 
us,  differs  imperceptibly  from  that  of  Virginia,  owing  to  its 
vicinity  to  the  ocean,  while  its  soil  is  decidedly  less  fertile  ; 
but  such  progress  has  been  made  in  bringing  that  soil 
under  cultivation  that,  against  eight  dollars  per  acre — the 
average  price  of  land  in  Virginia — there  is  to  beset  in  New 
Jersey  an  average  of  forty-four  dollars. f  Let  us  take  another 
example.  New  York  and  Massachusetts  are  also,  in  relation 
to  Virginia,  contemporary  states.  In  agricultural  resources 
they  are  greatly  its  inferiors,  the  soil  of  Massachusetts  in  parti 
cular  being  sterile  and  its  climate  harsh.  What  then  has 


*  The  actual  numbers  were,  1,980,329. 

f  OlmstecTs  Seaboard  Slave  States,  p.  171.  In  connexion  with  this  question  Mr. 
Weston  (Proyresx  of  Slavery)  gives  the  following  striking  statistics,  p.  17  : — "The 
following  were  the  prices  per  acre  in  the  states  and  counties  named,  and  the  per 
centage  of  slaves  in  Kentucky  and  the  counties  named : — 

Value  per  acre.      Per  ct.  of  slaves. 

Ohio $19-99 

Indiana 10-66 

Illinois 7-99 

Kentucky 9'03  22 

Ohio  counties  adjoining  Kentucky    ...  32  34 

Kentucky  counties  adjoining  Ohio    .     .     .  18-27  10 

Indiana  counties  adjoining  Kentucky    .     .       11-34 

Kentucky  counties  adjoining  Indiana   .     .  10  44  21 

Illinois  counties  adjacent  to  Kentucky      .         4'65 
Kentucky  counties  adjacent  to  Illinois      .        4'54  18 " 


PREMA  TUREL  T  ARRESTED.  59 

been  the  relative  progress  made  by  these  three  states  in  bring 
ing  their  respective  soils  under  cultivation  ?  In  Virginia,  26£ 
per  cent,  of  her  whole  area  had,'  in  1852,  been  brought  under 
tillage  ;  in  New  York,  41  per  cent. ;  and  in  Massachusetts,  42£ 
per  cent.  But  these  facts  do  not  convey  their  full  lesson  till  we 
add  that,  in  bringing  2GJ  per  cent,  of  her  soil  under  cultiva 
tion,  Virginia  employed  eight-tenths  of  her  industrial  popula 
tion,  while  New  York  and  Massachusetts,  in  bringing  under 
cultivation  much  larger  proportions  of  their  areas,  employed 
but  six  and  four-tenths  of  their  respective  populations.*  It 
thus  appears  that  Virginia,  with  great  agricultural  resources 
and  a  population  almost  wholly  devoted  to  agriculture,  has  been 
far  outstripped  in  her  own  peculiar  branch  of  industry  by  states 
of  inferior  resources,  and  whose  industry  has  been  largely  or 
principally  devoted  to  other  pursuits.  The  same  comparison 
might  be  continued  throughout  the  other  Free  and  Slave  states 
with  analogous  results.  The  general  truth  is,  that  in  the  Free 
States,  where  external  circumstances  are  favourable,  industry  is 
distributed  over  many  occupations — manufactures, mining,  com 
merce,  agriculture  ;  while  in  the  Slave  States,  however  various 
be  the  resources  of  the  country,  it  is  substantially  confined  to 
one — agriculture;  and  in  this  one  is  prematurely  arrested,  never 
reaching  that  stage  of  development  which  in  countries  where 
labour  is  free  is  early  attained. 

T^ie  reader  is  now  in  a  position  to  understand  the  kind  of 
economic  success  which  slavery  has  achieved.  It  consists  in 
the  rapid  extraction  from  the  soil  of  a  country  of  the  most  easily 
obtained  portion  of  its  wealth  by  a  process  which  exhausts  the 
soil,  and  consigns  to  waste  all  the  other  resources  of  the  coun 
try  where  it  is  practised.  To  state  the  case  with  more  particu 
larity — by  proscribing  manufactures  and  commerce,  and  confin 
ing  agriculture  within  narrow  bounds,  by  rendering  impossible 
the  rise  of  a  free  peasantry,  by  checking  the  growth  of  popula 
tion — in  a  word,  by  blasting  every  germ  from  which  national 
well-being  and  general  civilization  may  spring — at  this  cost, 
with  the  further  condition  of  encroaching,  through  a  reckless 
system  of  culture,  on  the  stores  designed  by  Providence  for 
future  generations,  slavery  may  undoubtedly  for  a  time  be  made 
conducive  to  the  pecuniary  gain  of  the  class  who  keep  slaves. 


*  These  facts  are  given  in  an  "Address  to  the  Farmers  of  Virginia,"  by  the 
Virginia  State  Agricultural  Society,  which,  after  having  been  twice  read,  approved, 
and  adopted,  was  finally  rejected  on  the  ground  that  "  there  were  admissions  in  it 
which  would  feed  the  fanaticism  of  the  abolitionists ;"  but  "no  one  argued  against 
it  on  the  ground  of  the  falsity  or  inaccuracy  of  its  returns."  It  is  quoted  at  length 
by  Olmsted,  Seaboard  Slave  States,  pp.  167-170. 


80  CONSTITUTION  OF  SLA  VE  SOCIETY 

Such  is  the  net  result  of  advantage  which  slavery,  as  an  econo 
mic  system,  is  capable  of  yielding.  To  the  full  credit  of  all 
that  is  involved  in  this  admission  the  institution  is  fairly  enti 
tled. 

The  constitution  of  a  slave  society,  it  has  been  seen,  is  suffi- 
cieritly  simple  :  i.t  resolves  itself  into  three  classes,  broadly  dis- 
tingui>hed  from  each  other,  and  connected  by  no  common  in 
terest — the  slaves  on  whom  devolves  all  the  regular  industry, 
the  slave-holders  who  reap  all  its  fruits,  and  an  idle  and  law 
less  rabble  who  live  dispersed  over  vast  plains  in  a  condition 
little  removed  from  absolute  barbarism.  These  form  the  con 
stituent  elements  of  the  society  of  which  the  Slave  Power  is  the 
political  representative.  "What  the  nature  of  that  power  is, 
now  that  we  have  ascertained  the  elements  out  of  which  it 
springs,  we  can  have  little  difficulty  in  determining.  When  the 
whole  wealth  of  a  country  is  monopolized  by  a  thirtieth  part 
of  its  population,  while  the  remainder  are  by  physical  or  moral 
causes  consigned  to  compulsory  poverty  and  ignorance  ;  when 
the  persons  composing  the  privileged  thirtieth  part  are  all 
engaged  in  pursuits  of  the  same  kind,  subject  to  the  influence 
of  the  same  moral  ideas,  and  identified  with  the  maintenance 
of  the  same  species  of  property — in  a  society  so  constituted 
political  power  will  of  necessity  reside  with  those  in  whom 
centre  the  elements  of  such  power — wealth,  knowledge,  and 
intelligence — the  small  minority  for  whose  exclusive  benefittfhe 
system  exists.  The  polity  of  such  a  society  must  thus,  in  essence, 
be  an  oligarchy,  whatever  be  the  particular  mould  in  which  it 
is  cast.  Nor  is  this  all.  A  society  so  organized  tends  to  de 
velop  with  a  peculiar  intensity  the  distinctive  vices  of  an  oli 
garchy.  In  a  country  of  free  labour,  whatever  be  the  form  of 
government  to  which  it  is  subject,  the  pursuits  of  industry  are 
various.  Various  interests,  therefore,  take  root,  and  parties 
grow  up  which,  regarding  national  questions  from  various  points 
of  view,  become  centres  of  opposition,  whether  against  the  undue 
pretensions  of  any  one  of  their  number,  or  against  those  of  a  single 
ruler.  It  is  not  so  in  the  Slave  States.  That  variety  of  inte 
rests  which  springs  from  the  individual  impulses  of  a  free  popu 
lation  does  not  here  exist.  The  elements  of  a  political  opposition 
are  wanting.  There  is  but  one  party,*  but  one  set  of  men  who 


*  There  is  one  exception  to  this  statement.  Between  the  breeding  and  working 
states  a  difference  of  interest  has  been  developed  which  has  resulted  in  the  formation, 
of  two  parties  within  the  Slave  States  But  (as  will  hereafter  be  shown)  this  differ 
ence  of  interest  has  never  been  sufficient  to  produce  any  serious  discordance  among 
the  politicians  of  the  South.  The  sympathies  which  bind  the  breeding  and  working 
states  together  are  far  stronger  than  any  interests  which  separate  them  ;  and  in  the 
main  they  have  always  acted  as  a  single  party. 


ESSENTIALLY  OLIGARCHICAL.  61 

are  capable  of  acting  together  in  political  concert.  The  rest  is 
an  undisciplined  rabble.  From  this  state  of  things  the  only 
possible  result  is  that  which  we  tind — a  despotism,  in  the  last 
degree  unscrupulous  and  impatient  of  control,  wielded  by  the 
wealthy  few.  Now  it  is  this  power  which  for  half  a  century 
has  exercised  paramount  sway  in  the  councils  of  the  Union. 
It  is  the  men  educated  in  the  ideas  of  this  system  who  have 
filled  the  highest  offices  of  State,  who  have  been  the  represen 
tatives  of  their  country  to  European  Powers,  and  who,  by  their 
position  and  the  influence  they  have  commanded,  have  given 
the  tone  to  the  public  morality  of  the  nation.  The  deteriora 
tion  of  the  institutions  and  of  the  character  of  the  people  of 
the  United  States  is  now  very  commonly  taken  for  grained  in 
this  country.  The  fact  may  be  so;  so  far  as  the  South  is  con 
cerned  I  believe,  and  shall  endeavour  to  prove,  that  it,  unques 
tionably  is  so.  But  it  is  very  important  that  we  should  under 
stand  to  what  cause  this  deterioration  is  due.  There  are  writ 
ers  who  would  have  us  believe  that  it  is  but  the  natural  result 
of  democratic  institutions  working  through  the  Federal  system  ; 
and  for  tl^s^iew  ^plausible  case  may  be  easily  made  oat. 
Democrati^Tnstitu^ps  have  admittedly  exercised  a  powerful 
influence  in  forming  the  American  character  and  in  determin 
ing  the  present  condition  of  the  United  States.  It  is  only  neces 
sary,  therefore,  to  bring  this  point  strongly  into  view  n  close 
connexion  with  all  that  is  most  objectionable  in  the  public 
morals,  and  all  that  is  most  discreditable  in  the  recent  history, 
of  the  Union,  keeping  carefully  out  of  sight  the  existence  in 
the  political  system  of  institutions  the  reverse  of  democratic 
and  avoiding  all  reference  to  the  cardinal  fact,  that  it  is  these 
and  not  the  democratic  institutions  of  the  North  which,  almost 
since  its  establishment,  have  been  the  paramount  power  in  the 
Union, — to  leave  the  impression  that  everything  that  has  been 
made  matter  of  reproach  in  transatlantic  politics  has  been  due 
to  democracy  and  to  democracy  alone.  According  to  this 
method  of  theorising,  the  abstraction  of  Florida,  the  annexation 
of  Texa£,  the  filibustering  expeditions  of  Lopez  and  Walker, 
the  attempts  upon  Cuba,  have  no  connexion  with  the  aggressive 
ambition  of  the  Slave  Power:  they  are  only  proofs  of  the  rapa 
cious  spirit  of  democracy  armed  wkh  the  strength  of  a  powerful 
federation.  It  is,  indeed,  quite  astounding  to  observe  the  bold 
ness  with  which  this  argument  is  sometimes  handled.  One  would 
have  thought  that  an  advocate  of  the  Southern  cause  would 
at  least  have  shown  some  hesitancy  in  alluding  to  an  attack 
made  by  a  Southern  bully,  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate-house, 
upon  one  of  the  most  accomplished  statesmen  of  the  North, 


62        REPROACH  FALSELY  CHARGED  ON  DEMOCRACY. 

That  attack  was  in  all  circumstances  plainly  branded  with  the 
marks  of  its  origin.  It  was  committed  by  a  slaveholder,  acting 
as  the  champion  of  slaveholders,  in  revenge  for  an  anti-slavery 
speech ;  it  was  characterized  by  that  mingled  treachery, 
cowardice,  and  brutality  which  are  only  to  be  found  in  socie 
ties  reared  in  the  presence  of  slavery ;  it  was  adopted  and  ap 
plauded  by  the  whole  people  of  the  South,  recognized  by  testi 
monials,  and  rewarded  by  gifts  :  yet  this  act  is  deliberately  put 
forward  as  an  example  of  the  "  irreverence  for  justice"  which 
is  produced  by  democratic  institutions,  and  is  employed  to  pre 
possess  our  minds  in  favour  of  the  Southern  cause  !*  The 
present  writer  is  far  from  being  an  admirer  of  democracy  as  it 


*  Spence's  American  Union,  pp.  65-6,  74-5.  Mr.  Spence  states  the  act,  omitting 
to  mention  the  occasion,  or  whether  the  actors  were  Northern  or  Southern  men , 
but  in  the  same  paragraph,  having  alluded  to  the  case  of  Mr.  Sickles,  he  adds  that 
the  man  '•  who  committed  a  deliberate  and  relentless  murder  in  open  day  .  .  • 
.  .  is  now  a  Brigadier-General  in  the  Northern  army."  Is  the  mention  of  the 
criminal's  origin  in  one  case,  and  its  suppression  in  the  other,  an  accident  ? 

In  a  later  portion  of  the  volume  a  still  more  striking  instance  occurs  of  Mr. 
Spence's  candour.  "  A  French  writer,  Raymond,  cojnments  jmfla  ^ie  singular 
fact  that  whilst  between  England  and  France  but  onWlHous  qur^rel  has  occurred 
since  1815,  there  have  arisen  during  the  same  period  twelve  or  thirteen  most  serious 

difficulties  between  the  United  States  and    ourselves We  have  had 

minor  wars  with  China,  conducted  on  the  principle  of  throwing  open  to  the  world 
every  advantage  obtained  by  ourselves.  On  one  occasion  we  invited  the  co-opera 
tion  of  the  American  Government,  but  in  vain,  and  every  opportunity  was  seized  to 
thwart  our  policy.  Even  the  Chinese  know  they  may  expect  to  see  the  flag  of  any 
other  power  in  union  with  our  own,  but  never  that  of  America.-  There  was,  indeed, 
a  moment  when  our  men  were  falling  under  a  murderous  fire,  that  for  once  an 
American  was  heard  to  declare  that  '  blood  was  thicker  than  water.1  It  would  ill 
become  us  to  forget  the  noble  conduct  of  Commodore  Tatnall  on  that  occasion.  He 
was  a  Southerner,  and  is  now  a  '  traitor  and  rebel1  "  (pp.  294-296).  Let  the  reader 
note  the  art  with  which  the  facts  are  here  manipulated.  We  are  asked  to  refuse 
our  sympathies  to  the  North,  because,  since  1815  we  have  had  frequent  difficulties 
with  the  United  States  (which  the  North  now  represents) — the  circumstances  that 
during  almost  the  whole  of  this  period  the  Government  of  the  United  States  was  in 
the  hands  of  Southern  statesmen  being  suppressed  as  of  no  importance  in  the  case. 
On  the  other  hand  a  single  instance  in  which  a  Southerner  has  performed  au  act  of 
a  friendly  nature  towards  Great  Britain  is  brought  prominently  forward  as  a  ground 
for  giving  our  sympathies  to  the  South.  It  is  evident  that  the  contrast  thus  insti 
tuted  between  the  friendly  conduct  of  Commodore  Tatnall — a  Southerner — and  the 
hostile  spirit  which  had  just  been  commented  on  as  manifested  by  the  Government 
of  the  Union,  can,  taken  in  connexion  with  the  general  tenor  of  the  argument,  have 
no  other  effect  than  to  leave  readers  unacquainted  with  the  facts  (a  rather  numerous 
class  unfortunately  in  this  country)  under  the  impression  that,  as  the  friendly 
demonstration  was  the  act  of  a  Southerner,  so  the  hostile  manifestations  proceeded 
from  the  North.  The  spirit  evinced  in  this  passage,  which  is  merely  a  specimen  of 
the  main  argument  of  the  work  from  which  it  is  taken,  is  all  the  more  remarkable  in 
a  writer  who  in  his  preface  bespeaks  the  confidence  of  his  readers  on  the  ground 
that  "  personal  considerations  and  valued  friendships  incline  him  without  exception 
to  the  Northern  side,"  which  he  has  been  compelled  reluctantly  to  abandon  by 
"  convictions  forced  upon  the  mind  by  facts  and  reasonings." 


CHARA  CTER  OF  THE  SLA  VE  PO  WER.  63 

exists  in  the  Northern  States ;  but,  whatever  be  the  merits 
or  demerits  of  that  form  of  government,  it  is  desirable  that  it 
should  be  judged  by  its  own  fruits,  and  not  by  the  fruits  of  a 
•system  which  is  its  opposite  — a  system  which,  in  place  of  con 
ferring  political  power  on  the  majority  of  the  people,  gives  it, 
free  from  all  control,  to  a  small  minority  whose  interests  arc 
not  only  not  identical  with  those  of  their  fellow-citizens,  but 
directly  opposed  to  theirs.  Democracy,  beyond  all  doubt,  has 
been  a  powerful  influence  in  moulding  the  character  of  the 
Americans  in  the  Northern  States  ;  it  would  be  absurd  to  deny 
this  ;  but  it  would  be  no  less  absurd,  and  would  be  still  more 
flagrantly  in  defiance  of  the  most  conspicuous  facts  of  the  case, 
to  deny  that  that  character  has  also  been  profoundly  modified 
by  the  influence  of  Southern  institutions,  acting  through  the 
(Federal  government,  in  the  persons  of  Southern  men — institu 
tions  which  I  repeat  are  the  reverse  of  democratic.  It  is  the 
Slave  Power,  and  not  the  democracy  of  the  North,  which  for 
half  a  century  has  been  dominant  in  the  Union.  It  is  this 
Power  which  has  directed  its  public  policy ;  which  has  guided 
its  intercourse  with  foreign  nations,  conducted  its  diplomacy, 
regulated  its  internal  legislation,  and  which,  by  working  on  its 
hopes  and  fears  through  the  unscrupulous  use  of  arj  enormous 
patronage,  has  exercised  an  unbounded  sway  over  the  minds  of 
the  whole  people.  Whatever  other  agencies  may  have  contri 
buted  to  shape  the  course  of  American  politics,  this  at  least  has 
been  a  leading  one  ;  and  whatever  be  the  political  character  of 
the  citizens,  for  th^t  character  this  system  must  be  held  in  a 
principal  degree  responsible. 

To  sum  up  in  a  few  words  the  general  results  of  the  forego 
ing  discussion  : — the  Slave  Power — that  power  which  has  long 
held  the  helm  of  government  in  the  Union — is,  under  the  forms 
of  a  democracy,  an  uncontrolled  despotism,  wielded  by  a  compact 
oligarchy.  Supported  by  the  labour  of  four  millions  of  slaves, 
it  rules  a  population  of  five  millions  of  whites — a  population 
ignorant,  averse  to  systematic  industry,  and  prone  to  irregular 
adventure.  A  system  of  society  more  formidable  for  evil,  more 
menacing  to  the  best  interests  of  the  human  race,  it  is  difficult 
to  conceive. 


64  IN  WHAT  DIRECTION  MO  V1NG  f 

CHAPTEK    IV. 

TENDENCIES    OF   SLAVE    SOCIETIES. 

IN  what  direction  is  slave  society,  as  presented  in  the  States  of 
the  Confederation,  moving?  Towards  a  higher  civilization,  or 
towards  barbarism  ?  On  the  answer  to  this  question,  I  appre 
hend,  will  principally  depend  the  degree  of  indulgence  which 
we  may  be  disposed  to  extend  to  modern  slavery.  If  the  form 
of  society  springing  from  the  institution  be  found  to  be  but  an 
incident  of  a  certain  stage  of  human  progress,  a  shell  of  bar 
barism  from  which  nations  gradually  work  themselves  free  with 
the  development  of  their  moral  and  material  life,  an  evil  wh 
will  disappear  by  a  spontaneous  process — we  shall  probably  be 
disposed  to  regard  the  institution  with  considerable  leniency, 
to  deprecate  schemes  for  its  overthrow,  and,  perhaps,  in  certain 
cases,  even  to  look  with  favour  on  plans  for  its  extension.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  appear  that  the  system  is  essentially 
retrograde  in  its  character,  contrived  so  as  to  arrest  and  throw 
back  the  development,  moral  and  material,  of  the  people  on 
whom  it  is  imposed,  and  to  hold  them  in  a  condition  of  perma 
nent  barbarism,  the  sentiments  with  which  we  shall  regard  it, 
as  well  as  our  policy  towards  the  countries  which  uphold  it, 
will  be  of  a  very  different  kind. 

Thus,  to  give  the  point  a  practical  illustration,  the  mode  of 
dealing  with  Mexico  is  at  present  a  most  perplexing  question 
for  European  statesmen.  In  the  present  condition  of  that 
country — the  prey  of  contending  factions,  whose  alternate 
excesses  prevent  the  growth  of  steady  industry,  deter  European 
settlement,  and  deprive  the  world  of  the  benefit  which  its  great 
natural  resources  are  calculated  to  confer — almost  any  change 
would  be  a  change  for  the  better.  The  establishment  of  an 
eifective  government  of  some  kind,  of  a  power  capable  of 
preserving  the  lives  and  properties  of  the  inhabitants,  is  a 
matter  of  prime  necessity,  without  which  the  first  foundations 
of  improvement  cannot  be  laid.  Now  the  most  obvious 
method  of  effecting  this  purpose  would  be  to  hand  the  country 
over  to  the  Southern  Confederation  ;*  and  this  arrangement 
would  entirely  fall  in  with  the  views  of  the  leaders  of  that 
body.  But  Mexico,  whatever  be  the  vices  of  its  political  sys- 

*  This  is  not  a  mere  fanciful  hypothesis.  The  plan  has  been  suggested  in  terms 
sufficiently  unambiguous  by  the  Times.  See  a  leading  article  of  the  Times,  31sk 
July,  1861. 


TENDENCIES  OF  SLA  V'E  SOCIETIES.  65 

tern,  is  a  state  in  which  labour  is  free  ;  whereas,  if  annexed  to 
the  dominions  of  the  Southern  Confederation,  it  would  at  once 
become  the  abode  of  slavery.  Nevertheless  it  can  scarcely  be 
doubted  that  this  annexation  would,  in  the  first  instance,  be 
attended  with  some  advantages.  For  the  chieftains  whose 
combined  weakness  and  violence  now  keep  the  country  in  con 
stant  agitation  there  would  be  substituted  a  strong  government 
— a  government  incompatible,  indeed,  with  freedom  of  speech 
or  writing,  or  with  security  of  life  or  property  for  such  as  ven 
tured  to  dissent  from  its  principles,  but  still  able  to  preserve 
order  after  a  certain  fashion — able  to  protect  slaveholders  in 
the  enjoyment  of  their  property,  and  to  prevent  revolutions. 
Under  such  a  government  productive  industry  might  be 
expected  to  start  forward  with  vigour ;  those  products  which 
are  capable  of  being  raised  with  profit  by  slave  labour,  and 
amongst  these  cotton,  would  be  multiplied  and  cheapened  in 
the  markets  of  the  world  ;  the  position  of  Mexican  bondholders 
would  be  improved.  Such  would  probably  be  the  immediate 
effect  of  the  annexation.  But  what  would  be  its  permanent 
consequences  ?  To  answer  this  question  we  must  resolve  the 
problem  with  which  we  started.  We  must  determine  the 
direction  in  which  society  in  the  Southern  States  is  moving. 
If  the  u  peculiar  institution  "  be  essentially  temporary  and  pro 
visional  in  its  character,  if  it  be  not  incompatible  with  the 
ultimate  emancipation  of  those  on  whom  it  is  imposed,  as  well 
as  with  the  continued  progress  of  the  people  among  whom  it 
is  established,  then  the  permanent  as  well  as  immediate  conse 
quences  of  the  extension  of  Southern  rule  over  Mexico,  not 
withstanding  that  it  would  be  attended  with  the  introduction 
of  slavery  into  a  country  where  lab'our  at  present  is  free,  might 
perhaps  be  thought  to  be,  on  the  whole,  advantageous.  But, 
if  the  institution  of  the  South  be  a  permanent  thraldom,  and 
if  the  form  of  society  to  which  it  gives  birth  be  of  a  kind 
effectually  to  arrest  the  growth  of  the  whole  people  among 
whom  it  is  planted — under  these  circumstances,  to  hand  over 
Mexico  to  the  Southern  Confederacy  would  be  nothing  less 
than,  for  the  sake  of  certain  material  advantages  to  be  reaped 
by  the  present  generation,  to  seal  the  doom  of  a  noble  country 
— a  country  which,  under  better  auspices,  might  become  a 
perennial  source  of  benefits  for  all  future  time,  and  a  new 
centre  of  American  civilization. 

It  is  therefore  of  extreme  importance  to  ascertain  the  ten 
dencies  of  these  slave  societies,  and  what  prospects  they  hold 
out  of  future  advancement  to  the  people  who  compose  them. 
And,  in  approaching  this  question,  it  at  once  occurs  that  sla- 

5 


66  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  SLA  VERT. 

very  is  not  a  new  fact  in  the  world.  It  prevailed,  as  we  know, 
among  all  the  nations  of  antiquity,  of  whom,  nevertheless, 
some  displayed  great  aptitude  for  intellectual  cultivation,  and 
attained  a  high  degree  of  general  civilization.  It  formed,  at 
one  time,  an  ingredient  in  the  social  system  of  all  modern 
states,  which,  however,  did  not  find  it  incompatible  with  a  pro 
gressive  career,  and  the  last  traces  of  slavery,  in  the  mitigated 
form  of  serfdom,  are  but  now  disappearing  from  Europe.  If 
slavery  was  not  inconsistent  with  progressive  civilization  among 
the  ancient  Greeks,  Romans,  and  Hebrews — if  mediaeval  Eu 
rope  contrived  to  work  itself  free  from  this  vicious  element  of 
its  social  constitution,  it  will  perhaps  be  asked  why  need  we 
despair  of  progress  for  the  States  of  the  Confederation.  "Why 
are  we  to  suppose  that  they,  under  the  influence  of  the  same 
>causes  which  operated  in  ancient  and  mediaeval  society,  should 
not,  in  the  same  gradual  fashion,  emancipate  their  slaves,  and 
ultimately  reach  the  same  level  of  general  cultivation  which 
those  societies  attained?  Nay,  it  is  possible  that  there  may  be 
those  who,  while  holding  slavery  to  be,  as  a  permanent  status, 
noxious,  may  nevertheless  regard  it  as  not  incapable  of  per 
forming  a  useful  function  towards  people  in  a  certain  stage  of 
their  development,  as  a  kind  of  probationary  discipline  suitable 
to  their  preparation  for  a  higher  form  of  civilized  existence,  and 
may  consider  its  maintenance  in  the  Southern  States  at  present 
as  defensible  upon  this  ground.  Some  such  notion,  it  seems  to 
me,  is  at  the  bottom  of  much  of  the  indulgence,  and  even 
favour,  with  which  the  cause  of  the  South  has  come  to  be 
regarded  in  this  country;*  and  it  is,  therefore,  worth  while  to 
consider  how  far  this  view  of  modern  slavery  is  well-founded. 

And  here  it  may  be  advantageous  to  bear  in  mind  the  cau 
tion  of  De  Tocqueville.  "  When  I  compare  the  Greek  and 
Roman  republics  with  these  American  States  ;  when  I  remem 
ber  all  the  attempts  which  are  made  to  judge  the  modern 
republics  by  the  assistance  of  those  of  antiquity,  and  to  infer 
what  will  happen  in  our  time  from  what  took  place  two  thou 
sand  years  ago,  I  am  tempted  to  burn  my  books,  in  order 
to  apply  none  but  novel  ideas  to  so  novel  a  condition  of  soci 
ety."  The  truth  is,  between  slavery,  as  it  existed  in  classical 

*  "  Slavery,"  says  a  writer  in  the  Saturday  Review,  "  appears  to  die  away,  or  at 
least  its  most  horrible  incidents  disappear  in  proportion  as  the  community  in  which 
it  exists  becomes  older,  more  wealthy,  and  therefore  more  dense.  .  .  .  The  best 
.chance  for  the  alleviation  of  the  slave's  condition  lies  in  the  increased  wealth  and 
prosperity  of  the  South.  In  other  words,  its  freedom  to  develop  its  own  resources, 
without  foreign  intervention,  is  the  slave's  best  hope.  And  it  is  agreed  on  all  hands 
-.that  a  modified  and  alleviated  slavery  is  a  transitional  state  in  which  it  is  very  diffi 
cult  for  the  slaveowners  to  halt  long." — Nov.  2nd,  1861. 


DIFFERENCE  OF  RACE  AND  COLOUR.  67 

and  mediaeval  times  and  the  system  which  now  erects  itself  defi 
antly  in  North  America,  there  exist  the  most  deep  reaching 
distinctions.  I  will  mention  three,  which,  as  it  seems  to  me, 
are  in  themselves  sufficient  to  take  the  case  of  modern  slavery 
entirely  out  of  the  scope  of  the  analogies  furnished  by  the 
former  experience  of  mankind. 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  vital  fact — the  difference  in 
race  and  colour  between  modern  slaves  and  their  masters — a 
difference  which  had  nothing  corresponding  to  it  in  the  slavery 
of  former  times.  The  consequences  flowing  from  this  fact  can 
not  be  better  stated  than  in  the  language  of  De  Tocqueville. 
"The  slave,  amongst  the  ancients,  belonged  to  the  same  race 
as  his  master,  and  he  was  often  the  superior  of  the  two  in  edu 
cation  and  instruction.  Freedom  was  the  only  distinction 
between  them;  and  when  freedom  was  conferred,  they  were 

easily  confounded  together." "  The- greatest  difficulty 

'of  antiquity  [in  the  way  of  abolition]  was  that  of  altering  the 
law;  amongst  the  moderns  it  is  that  of  altering  the  manners ; 
and,  as  far  as  we  are  concerned,  the  real  obstacles  begin  where 
those  of  the  ancients  left  off.  This  arises  from  the  circumstance 
that,  amongst  the  moderns,  the  abstract  and  transient  fact  of 
slavery  is  fatally  united  to  the  physical  and  permanent  fact  of 
colon f.  The  tradition  of  slavery  dishonours  the  race,  and  the 
peculiarity  of  the  race  perpetuates  the  tradition  of  slavery.  No 
African  has  ever  voluntarily  emigrated  to  the  shores  of  the 
New  World  ;  whence  it  must  be  inferred,  that  all  the  blacks 
who  are  now  to  be  found  in  that  hemisphere  are  either  slaves 
or  freedmen.  Thus  the  negro  transmits  the  external  mark  of 
his  ignominy  to  all  his  descendants.  The  law  may  cancel  ser 
vitude,  God  alone  can  obliterate  its  brand. 

"The  modern  slave  differs  from  his  master  not  only  in  his 
condition,  but  in  his  origin.  You  may  set  the  negro  free,  hut 
you  cannot  make  him  otherwise  than  an  alien  to  the  European. 
Nor  is  this  all :  we  scarcely  acknowledge  the  common  features 
of  mankind  in  this  child  of  debasement  whom  slavery  has 
brought  amongst  us.  His  physiognomy  is  to  our  eyes  hideous, 
his  understanding  weak,  his  tastes  low ;  and  we  are  almost 
inclined  to  look  upon  him  as  a  being  intermediate  between  man 
and  the  brutes.  The  moderns,  then,  after  they  have  abolished 
slavery,  have  three  prejudices  to  contend  against,  which  are 
less  easy  to  attack,  and  far  less  easy  to  conquer,  than  the  mere 
fact  of  servitude:  the  prejudice  of  the  master,  the  prejudice  of 
race,  and  the  prejudice  of  colour."* 

But',  secondly,  the  immense   development  of  international 

*  Democracy  in  America,  vol.  ii.  pp.  215-217. 


68  ED  VGA  TION  OF  ROMAN  SLA  YES. 

commerce  in  modern  times  furnishes  another  distinction  between 
ancient  and  modern  slavery,  which  very  intimately  affects  the 
question  we  are  discussing. 

So  long  as  each  nation  was  in  the  main  dependent  on  the 
industry  of  its  own  members  for  the  supply  of  its  wants,  it  is 
obvious  that  a  strong  motive  would  be  present  for  the  cultiva 
tion  of  the  intelligence,  and  the  improvement  of  the  condition, 
of  the  industrial  classes.  The  commodities  which  minister  to 
comfort  and  luxury  cannot  be  produced  without  skilled  labour, 
and  skilled  labour  implies  a  certain  degree  of  mental  cultiva 
tion,  and  a  certain  progress  in  social  respect.  To  attain  success 
in  the  more  difficult  industrial  arts,  the  workman  must  respect 
his  vocation,  must  take  an  interest  in  his  task  ;  habits  of  care, 
deliberation,  forethought  must  be  acquired  ;  in  short,  there 
must  be  such  a  general  awakening  of  the  faculties,  intellectual 
and  moral,  as,  by  leading  men  to  a  knowledge  of  their  rights 
and  of  the  means  of  enforcing  them,  inevitably  disqualifies 
them  for  the  servile  condition.  Now,  this  was  the  position  in 
which  the  slave  master  found  himself  in  the  ancient  world. 
lie  was,  in  the  main,  dependent  on  the  skill  of  his  slaves  for 
obtaining  whatever  he  required.  He  was,  therefore,  naturally 
led  to  cultivate  the  faculties  of  his  slaves,  and  by  consequence 
to  promote  generally  the  improvement  of  their  condition.  His 
progress  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  material  advantages  of  civili 
zation  depended  directly  upon  their  progress  in  knowledge  and 
social  consideration.  Accordingly  the  education  of  slaves  was 
never  prohibited  in  the  ancient  Roman  world,  and,  in  point  of 
fact,  no  small  number  of  them  enjoyed  the  advantage  of  a  high 
cultivation.  "  The  youths  of  promising  genius,"  says  Gibbon, 
"  were  instructed  in  the  arts  and  sciences,  avid  almost  every 
profession,  liberal  and  mechanical,  might  be  found  in  the 
household  of  an  opulent  senator."  The  industrial  necessities  of 
Roman  society  (and  the  same  was  true  of  society  in  the  middle 
ages)  in  this  way  provided  for  the  education  of  at  least  a  large 
proportion  of  the  slave  population  ;  and  education,  accompanied 
as  it  was  by  a  general  elevation  of  their  condition,  led,  by  a 
natural  and  almost  inevitable  tendency,  to  emancipation.* 

*  "The  only  fair  analogy,"  says  Mr.  Congreve,  "to  the  slavery  of  Greece  and 
Rome  is  to  be  found  in  that  which  is  still  prevalent  in  Asia,  where  the  evils  of 
West  Indian  or  American  slavery  are  wholly  unknown,  and  the  relation  of  master 
and  slave  is  accepted  by  both,  as  being,  in  Aristotle's  words,  at  once  light  and  for 
the  common  interest."  On  the  other  hand,  "  if  we  seek  for  an  analogy  in  ancient 
times  to  modern  slavery,"  we  may  find  one  in  "  the  latifundia  of  the  Roman  nobles, 
or  what  may  bo  termed  the  corn  plantations  of  Sicily.  The  population  there  was 
slave,  and  there  was  no  check  to  the  misuse  of  their  power  by  the  agents  or  masters 
who  superintended  them.  And  there  was  no  intercourse,  no  sense  of  connexion  to 


INCREASED  RESOURCES  OF  SLA  VERT.  69 

But  in  the  position  of  slavery  in  North  America  there  is 
nothing  which  corresponds  to  this.  Owing  to  the  vast  develop 
ment  in  modern  times  of  international  trade,  modern  slave 
holders  are  rendered  independent  of  the  skill,  and  therefore  of 
the  intelligence  and  social  improvement,  of  their  slave  popula 
tion.  They  have  only  need  to  find  a  commodity  which  is  capa 
ble  of  being  produced  by  crude  labour,  and  at  the  same  time 
iirlarge  demand  in  the  markets  of  the  world;  and  by  applying 
their  slaves  to  the  production  of  this,  they  may,  through  an 
exchange  with  other  countries,  make  it  the  means  of  procuring 
for  themselves  whatever  they  require.  Cotton  and  sugar,  for 
example,  are  commodities  which  fulfil  these  conditions :  they 
may  be  raised  by  crude  labour,  and  they  are  in  large  demand 
throughout  the  world.  Accordingly  Alabama  and  Louisiana 
have  only  to  employ  their  slaves  in  raising  these  products,  and 
they  are  enabled  through  their  means  to  command  the  indus 
trial  resources  of  all  commercial  nations.  Without  cultivating 
one  of  the  arts  or  refinements  of  civilization,  they  can  possess 
themselves  of  all  its  material  comforts.  Without  employing 
an  artizan,  a  manufacturer,  a  skilled  labourer  of  any  sort,  they 
can  secure  the  products  of  the  highest  manufacturing  and 
mechanical  skill.  "  In  one  way  or  other,"  says  Mr.  Helper,* 
putting  the  point  strikingly,  though  from  the  protectionist  point 
of  view,  "  we  are  more  or  less  subservient  to  the  North  every 
day  of  our  lives.  In  infancy  we  are  swaddled  in  Northern 
muslin ;  in  childhood  we  are  humoured  with  Northern  gew 
gaws  ;  in  youth  we  are  instructed  out  of  Northern  books ;  at 
the  age  of  maturity  we  sow  our  '  wild  oats'  on  Northern  soil ; 
.  .  .  in  the  decline  of  life  we  remedy  our  eye-sight  with 
Northern  spectacles,  and  support  our  infirmities  with  Northern 
canes ;  in  old  age  we  are  drugged  with  Northern  physic ;  and, 
finally,  when  we  die,  our  inanimate  bodies,  shrouded  in  North 
ern  cambric,  are  stretched  upon  the  bier,  borne  to  the  grave 
in  a  Northern  carriage,  entombed  with  a  Northern  spade,  and 
memorized  with  a  Northern  slab  !"  Yet  all  these  products  of 
manufacturing  and  mechanical  skill,  the  States  which  consume 
them  are  able  to  command  through  the  medium  of  a.  commo 
dity  which  is  raised  by  the  crudest  servile  labour.  The 
resources  of  slavery  have  in  this  way  been  indefinitely  increased 
in  modern  times.  Its  capabilities  have  been  multiplied,  and, 

soften  the  inherent  hardships  of  their  condition.  They  revolted  once  and  again,  and 
there  was  danger  lest  their  revolt  should  spread,  lest  throughout  the  Roman  world 
the  slave  population  should  feel  that  it  had  a  common  cause." — Congreve's  Politic 
of  Aristi  tie,  p.  496. 

*  Impending  Crisis,  p.  27.* 


TO  SLA  VER  T  OF  THE  MIND. 

without  submitting  the  slightest  alleviation  of  its  harshest  fea 
tures,  it  can  adapt  itself  to  all  the  varying  wants  of  human 
society. 

But  the  consequences  of  the  increased  capabilities  of  slavery 
do  not  end  in  merely  negative  results.  Whatever  induce 
ments  may  exist  for  cultivating  the  intelligence  of  slaves, 
there  are  always  very  weighty  reasons  against  conferring 
this  boon.  Accordingly,  the  former  not  coming  into  play  in 
modern  times,  the  latter  have  operated  with  unrestricted  force. 
The  merest  rudiments  of  learning  are  now  rigorously  proscrib 
ed  for  the  negroes  in  the  Slave  States  of  North  America ;  an$ 
the  prohibition  is  enforced,  both  in  the  persons  of  the  teachers 
and  the  taught,  with  penalties  of  extraordinary  severity.* 
"The  only  means  by  which  the  ancients  maintained  shivery 
were  fetters  and  death ;  the  Americans  of  the  South  of  the 
Union  have  discovered  more  intellectual  securities  for  the  dura 
tion  of  their  power.  They  have  employed  their  despotism  and 
their  violence  against  the  human  mind.  In  antiquity,  precau 
tions  were  taken  to  prevent  the  slave  from  breaking  his  chains 5 

*  The  following  are  some  extracts  from  the  laws  of  some  of  the  Southern  States 
upon  this  subject.  In  South  Carolina  an  act  was  passed  in  1834,  which  provides  as 
folio ws:-ra If  any  person  shall  hereafter  teach  any  slave  to  read  or  write,  or  shall 
aid  in  assisting  any  slave  to  read  or  write,  or  cause  or  procure  any  slave  to  be  taught 
to  read  or  write,  such  person,  if  a  free  white  person,  upon  conviction  thereof,  shall 
for  every  such  offence  against  this  act  be  fined  not  exceeding  one  hundred  dollars, 
and  imprisoned  not  more  than  six  months;  or  if  a  free  person  of  colour,  shall  be 
whipped  not  exceeding  fifty  lashes,  and  fined  not  exceeding  fifty  dollars;  and  if  a 
slave,  shall  be  whipped,  not  exceeding  fifty  lashes;  and  if  any  free  person  of  colour 
or  a  slave  shall  keep  any  such  school  or  other  place  of  instruction  for  teaching  any 
slave  or  free  person  of  colour  to  read  or  write,  such  person  shall  be  liable  to  the  same 
fine,  imprisonment,  and  corporal  punishment  as  are  by  this  act  imposed  and  inflicted 
on  free  persons  of  colour  and  slaves  for  teaching  slaves  to  read  or  write."  In  Vir 
ginia,  according  te  the  code  of  1849,  "every  assemblage  of  negroes  for  the  purpose 
of  instruction  in  reading  or  writing  shall  be  an  unlawful  assembly.  Any  justice  rnay 
issue  his  warrant  to  any  officer  or  other  person,  requiring  him  to  enter  any  place 
where  such  assemblage  may  be,  and  seize  any  negro  therein;  and  he  or  any  other 
justice  may  order  such  negro  to  be  punished  with  stripes."  "If  a  white  person 
assemble  with  negroes  for  the  purpose  of  instructing  them  to  read  or  write,  he  shall 
be  confined  to  jail  not  exceeding  six  months,  and  fined  not  exceeding  one  hundred 
dollars."  In  Georgia  in  1829  it  was  enacted : — "If  any  slave,  negro,  or  free  person 
of  colour,  or  any  white  person,  shall  teach  any  other  slave,  negro,  or  free  person  of 
colour  to  read  or  write  either  written  or  printed  characters,  the  said  free  person  of 
colour  or  slave  shall  be  punished  by  fine  and  whipping,  or  fine  or  whipping,  at  the 
discretion  of  the  court;  and  if  a  white  person  so  offending,  he,  she,  or  they  shall  be 
punished  with  fine  not  exceeding  five  hundred  dollars,  and  imprisonment  in  the  com 
mon  jail,  at  the  discretion  of  the  court."  By  the  act  of  Assembly  of  Louisiana, 
passed  in  March,  1830,  "  all  persons  who  shall  teach  or  cause  to  be  taught  any  slave 
in  this  state  to  read  or  write  shall,  on  conviction  thereof,  &c.,  be  imprisoned  not  less 
than  one  or  more  than  twelve  months."  And  in  Alabama,  "  any  person  who  shall 
attempt  to  teach  any  free  person  of  colour  or  slave  to  spell,  read,  or  write,  shall  upon 
conviction,  &c.,  be  fined  in  a  sum  not  less  than  250  dollarsnaor  more  than  500  dollars." 


TEE  SLA  VE  TRADE.  7 1 

at  the  present  day  measures  are  adopted  to  deprive  him  even 
of  the  dcs'ie  of  freedom.  The  ancients  kept  the  bodies  of  their 
slaves  in  bondage,  but  they  placed  no  restraint  upon  the  mind 
and  no  check  upon  education  ;  and  they  acted  consistently  with 
their  established  principle,  since  a  natural  termination  of  slavery 
then  existed,  and  one  day  or  other  the  slave  might  he  set  free, 
and  become  the  equal  of  his  master.  But  the  Americms  of 
the  South,  who  do  not  admit  that  the  negroes  can  ever  be  com 
mingled  with  themselves,  have  forbidden  them  to  be  taught  to 
read  and  write  under  severe  penalties;  and  as  they  will  not 
raise  them  to  their  own  level,  they  sink  them  as  nearly  as  pos 
sible  to  that  of  the  brutes."*  The  education  of  slaves  amongst 
the  ancimts  prepared  the  way  for  emancipation.  The  prohibi 
tion  of  the  education  of  slaves  amongst  the  moderns  has  natu 
rally  suggested  the  policy  of  holding  them  in  perpetual  bond 
age;  and  laws  and  manners  have  conspired  to  interpose  obsta 
cles  all  but  insuperable  in  the  way  of  manumission.  Thus  the 
modern  slave  is  cut  off  from  the  one  gieat  alleviation  of  his  lot 
— the  hope  of  freedom. f 

But  there  is  yet  another  distinction  between  the  slavery  of 
modern  times  and  slavery  as  it  was  known  among  the  progres 
sive  communities  of  former  ages,  which  deserves  to  be  noticed 
— I  mean  the  place  which  the  slave  trade  fills  in  the  organiza 
tion  of  modern  slavery.  Trading  in  slaves  was  doubtless  prac 
tised  by  the  ancients,  and  with  sufficient  barbarity.  But  wo 
look  in  vain  in  the  records  of  antiquity  for  a  traffic  which  in 
extent,  in  systematic  character,  and,  above  all,  in  the  function 
discharged  by  it  as  the  common  support  of  countries  breeding 
and  consuming  human  labour,  which  can  with  justice  be 
regarded  as  the  analogue  of  the  modern  slave  trade — of  that 
organized  system  which  has  been  carried  on  between  Guinea 
and  the  coast  of  America,  or  of  that  between  Virginia,  the 
Guinea  of  the  New  World,  and  the  slave-consuming  States  of 
the  South  and  West4  This  peculiar  outgrowth  of  the  institu- 

*  Democracy  in  America,  vol.  ii.  pp.  246,  247. 

\  "  In  Aristotle  himself  we  find  suggested  one  of  the  greatest  alleviations  of  which 
slavery  is  susceptible.  There  ought  to  be  held  out  to  the  slave,  he  says,  the  hope 
of  liberty  as  the  reward  of  his  service.  Thus,  by  a  gradual  infiltration,  the  slave 
population  might  pass  into  the  free.  It  did  so  at  Rome  through  the  intermediate 
stage  of  freedom;  and  the  position  of  freed  men  at  Rome  in  the  later  republic,  and 
even  more  under  the  empire,  was  such  that  the  prospect  of  reaching  it  must  bave 
been  a  great  inducement  to  the  slaves  to  acquiesce  in  their  present  lot;  ti.iJ  it 
would  be  an  inducement  which  would  have  most  weight  with  the  highest  class  of 
slaves." — Congreve's  Politics  of  Aristutk,  p.  497. 

\  M.  Bureau  de  la  Malle,  in  a  critical  examination  of  the  loose  and  rhetorical: 
statements  of  ancient  authors  and  their  modern  critics,  has  dispelled  much  miscou-- 
cepiion  respecting  the  extent  of  the  ancient  commerce  in  slaves,  See 
Poliiique  dts  Romains,  torn,  i.,  pp.  246-269. 


72  THE  SLA  VE  TRADE 

tion  forms  a  characteristic  feature  in  modern  slavery,  and  its 
consequences,  in  connexion  with  the  question  which  we  are 
considering,  are  of  a  very  important  kind. 
/  The  effects  of  the  slave-trade  in  aggravating  a  hundredfold 
all  the  evils  of  servitude  have  often  been  described.  African 
slave-hunts,  the  horrors  of  the  middle  passage,  the  misery  of 
unhappy  barbarians,  accustomed  to  the  wild  freedom  of  their 
native  land,  caught  up  and  hurried  away  to  a  remote  continent? 
and  compelled  to  toil  for  the  rest  of  their  days  under  the  whip 
of  an  alien  taskmaster,  have  often  been  dwelt  upon.  So,  also, 
the  story  of  human  beings,  reared  amid  the  softening  influences 
of  civilization,  who,  so  soon  as  they  arrive  at  the  maturity  of 
their  physical  power,  are,  like  so  many  cattle,  shipped  off  to  a 
distant  region  of  tropical  heat  there  to  be  worked  to  death — 
of  husbands  separated  from  their  wives,  children  from  their 
parents,  brothers  and  sisters  from  each  other — of  exposure  on 
the  auction-block  and  transfer  to  new  masters  and  strange  cli 
mates — all  this  happening  not  to  heathen  savages,  but  to  men 
and  women  capable  of  affection  and  friendship,  and  sensible  to 
moral  suffering, — this  story,  I  say,  is  familiar  to  us  all ;  but  my 
object  at  present  is  to  direct  attention,  not  so  much  to  the  bar 
barous  inhumanity  of  the  slave-trade,  whether  foreign  or  domes 
tic,  as  to  what  has  not  been  so  often  noticed — the  mode  in  which 
it  operates  in  giving  increased  coherence  and  stability  to  the 
system  of  which  it  is  a  part.  Now,  it  does  this  in  two  ways, 
by  bringing  the  resources  of  salubrious  countries  to  supplement 
the  waste  of  human  life  in  torrid  regions  ;  and,  secondly,  by 
providing  a  new  source  of  profit  for  slaveholders,  which  enables 
them  to  keep  up  the  institution  when,  in  the  absence  of  this 
resource,  it  would  become  unprofitable  and  disappear. 

While  countries  depended  for  the  supply  of  servile  labour 
upon  the  natural  increase  of  their  own  slave  population,  there 
existed  an  obvious  limit  to  the  range  of  the  system  and  to  the 
hardships  it  was  capable  of  inflicting.  Where  the  character  ot 
the  climate,  or  the  nature  of  the  work  to  be  done,  was  such  as 
to  be  seriously  prejudicial  to  human  life,  slavery,  if  recruited 
from  within,  could  only  exist  through  great  attention  given  to 
the  physical  requirements  of  the  slaves.  Without  this,  it  must 
have  become  extinct  by  the  destruction  of  its  victims.  But,  a 
commerce  in  slaves  once  established,  these  natural  restraints 
upon  the  fullest  development  of  slavery  are  effectually  removed. 
The  rice-grounds  of  Georgia  or  the  swamps  of  the  Mississippi 
may  be  fatally  injurious  to  the  human  constitution  ;  but  the 
waste  of  human  life,  which  the  cultivation  of  these  districts 
necessitates,  is  not  so  great  that  it  cannot  be  repaired  from  the 


IN  RELATION  TO  TEE  CONSUMING  COUNTRIES.        73 

teeming  preserves  of  Virginia  and  Kentucky.  Considerations 
of  economy,  moreover,  which,  under  a  natural  system,  afford 
some  security  for  humane  treatment  by  identifying  the  mas 
ter's  interest  With  the  slave's  preservation,  when  once  trading 
in  slaves  is  practised,  become  reasons  for  racking  to  the 
utmost  the  toil  of  the  slave ;  for,  when  his  place  can  at 
once  be  supplied  from  foreign  preserves,  the  duration  of  his 
life  becomes  a  matter  of  le^s  moment  than  its  productiveness 
while  it  lasts.  It  is  accordingly  a  maxim  of  slave  management, 
in  slave-importing  countries,  that  the  most  effective  economy  is 
that  which  takes  out  of  the  human  chattel  in  the  shortest  space 
of  time  the  utmost  amount  of  exertion  it  is  capable  of  putting 
forth.  "  It  is  in  tropical  culture,  where  annual  profits  often 
equal  the  whole  capital  of  plantations,  that  negro  life  is  most 
recklessly  sacrificed.  It  is  the  agriculture  of  the  West  Indies, 
wThich  has  been  for  centuries  prolific  of  fabulous  wealth,  which 
has  engulfed  millions  of  the  African  race.  It  is  in  Cuba,  at  this 
day,  whose  revenues  are  reckoned  by  millions,  and  whose  plan 
ters  are  princes,  that  we  see,  in  the  servile  class,  the  coarsest 
fare,  the  most  exhausting  and  unremitting  toil,  and  even  the 
absolute  destruction  of  a  portion  of  its  numbers  eyery  year,  by 
the  slow  torture  of  overwork  and  insufficient  sleep  and  rest.  In 
our  own  country,  is  it  in  Maryland  and  Virginia  that  slaves  fare 
the  worst,  or  is  it  in  the  sugar  regions  of  Louisiana'and  Texas, 
where  the  scale  of  profits  suggests  the  calculation  of  using  them 
up  in  a  given  number  of  years  as  a  matter  of  economy?  Is  it 
not  notorious,  that  the  States  upon  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  in  which 
forced  labour  is  most  productive  to  those  who  own  it,  are  made 
use  of  by  the  northern  slave  States,  not  merely  as  markets  in 
which  to  dispose  of  slaves  as  a  matter  of  profit,  but  as  a  Botany 
Bay,  furnished  to  their  hands,  to  which  their  slaves  are  sent  by 
way  of  punishment?"*  The  slave-trade  thus  affords  the  means 
of  extending  the  institution  in  its  harshest  form  to  countries  in 
which,  without  this  support,  it  either  could  not  have  been  per 
manently  maintained  at  all,  or  only  in  a  very  mitigated  form, 
sustaining  the  waste  of  human  life  in  tropical  regions  from  the 
hardier  or  healthier  populations  of  barbarous  countries  and  of 
temperate  climes  f 

But  the  benefits  of  commerce  are  reciprocal,  and  if  slavery 
receives  a  new  impulse  from  the  slave-trade  in  the  warm 

*  Progress  of  Slavery,  pp.   132,  133. 

f  In  this  adaptation  the  slaveholders  trace  the  finger  of  God.  The  Professor  of 
Agricultural  Chemistry  in  the  University  of  Georgia  remarks  on  the  "providential" 
proportion  between  the  untilled  lands  of  the  South,  and  the  "  unemployed  power  of 
hnman  muscles  in  Africa." — •' I  trace,"  he  exclaims,  "  the  growing  demand  for  negro 
muscles,  boues,  and  brains  to  the  good  providence  of  God." 


4  DIVISION  OF  LABOUR 

regions  of  the  South,  it  acquires  increased  stability  in  more, 
temperate  countries  through  the  same  cause.  We  have  already 
seen  the  tendency  of  slave-labour  to  exhaust  the  soil,  and  the 
rapidity  with  which  this  process  proceeds,  reducing  to  the  con 
dition  of  wilderness  districts  which  fifty  years  before  were  yet 
untouched  by  the  hand  of  cultivation.  Now,  "this  would  seem 
to  promise  tha*  the  reign  of  slavery,  if  ruinous,  should  at  least 
be  brief,  and  we  might  expect  that,  when  the  soil  had  been 
robbed  of  its  fertility,  the  destroyer  would  retire  from  the  region 
which  he  had  rendered  desolate.  And  such  would  be  the  fate 
of  slavery,  were  it  depending  exclusively  on  the  soil  for  its  sup 
port;  but,  when  trading  in  human  beings  is  once  introduced,  a 
new  source  of  profit  is  developed  for  the  system,  which  renders 
it  in  a  great  degree  independent  of  the  resources  of  the  soil.  It 
is  this,  the  profit  developed  by  trading  in  slaves,  and  this  alone, 
which  has  enabled  slavery  in  the  older  Slave  States  of  North 
America  to  survive  the  consequences  of  its  own  ravages.  In 
Maryland  and  Virginia,  perhaps  also  in  the  Carolines  and 
Georgia,  free  institutions  would  long  since  have  taken  the  place 
of  slavery,  were  it  not  that  just  as  the  crisis  of  the  system  had 
arrived,  the  domestic  slave-trade  opened  a  door  of  escape  from 
a  position  which  had  become  untenable.  The  conjuncture  was 
peculiar,  and  would  doubtless  by  Southern  theologians  be  called 
providential.  Tke  progress  of  devastation  had  reached  the  p-ant 
at  which  slave  cultivation  could  no  longer  sustain  itself.  A  con 
siderable  emigration  of  planters  had  actually  taken  place,  and 
the  deserted  fields  were  already  receiving  a  new  race  of  set 
tlers  from  the  regions  of  freedom.*  The  long  night  of  slavery 
seemed  to  be  passing  away,  and  the  dawn  of  a  brighter  day  to 

*  The  progress  of  this  movement  is  thus  described  by  the  Southern  Planter : — 
"Every  farm  was  greatly  impoverished — almost  every  estate  was  seriously  impaired 
— and  some  were  involved  in  debt  to  nearly  their  value.  Most  of  the  proprietors  had 
died,  leaving  families  in  reduced  circumstances,  and  in  some  cases  in  great  straits. 
No  farm  whether  of  a  rioh  or  a  poor  proprietor  had  escaped  great  exhaustion,  and 
no  property  great  dilapidation,  unless  because  the  proprietor  had  at  first  been  too 
poor  to  join  in  the  former  expensive  habits  of  his  wealthier  neighbours.  There  was 
nothing  left  to  waste,  but  time  and  labour;  and  these  continued  to  be  wasted  in  the 
now  fruitless  efforts  to  cultivate  to  profit,  or  to  replace  the  fertility  of  soil  which  had 
been  destroyed.  Luxury  and  expense  had  been  greatly  lessened.  But  on  that 
account  the  universal  prostration  was  even  the  more  apparent.  Many  mansions 
were  falling  into  decay.  Few  received  any  but  trivial  and  indispensable  repairs. 
No  new  mansion  was  erected,  and  rarely  any  other  farm-building  of  value. 
There  was  still  generally  prevailing  idleness  among  proprietors;  and  also  an 
abandonment  of  hope,  which  made  every  one  desirous  to  sell  his  land  and  move 
to  the  fertile  and  far  West,  and  a  general  emigration  and  dispersion  was  only 
prevented  by  the  impossibility  of  finding  purchasers  for  the  lands,  even  at  half 
the  then  low  estimate  of  market  prices."  The  consequences  are  further  described 
by  Mr.  Olmsted  : — "Notwithstanding  a  constant  emigration  of  the  decayed  families, 


BETWEEN"  THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW  STATES.  75 

fcave  arrived,  when  suddenly  the  auspicious  movement  was 
arrested.  A  vast  extension  of  the  territory  of  the  United  States, 
opening  new  soils  to  Southern  enterprise,  exactly  coincided  with 
the  prohibition  of  the  external  slave  trade,  and  both  fell  in 
with  the  crisis  in  the  older  States.  The  result  was  a  sudden 
and  remarkable  rise  in  the  price  of  slaves.  The  problem  of  the 
planters'  position  was  at  once  solved,  and  the  domestic  slave- 
trade  commenced.  Slavery  had  robbed  Virginia  of  the  best 
riches  of  her  soil,  but  she  still  had  a  noble  climate — a  climate 
which  would  tit  her  admirably  for  being  the  breeding  place  of 
the  South.  A  division  of  labour  between  the  old  and  the  new 
states  took  place.  In  the  former  the  soil  was  extensively  ex 
hausted,  but  the  climate  was  salubrious  ;  in  the  latter  the  climate 
was  unfavourable  to  human  life  spent  in  severe  toil,  but  the 
soil  was  teeming  with  riches.  The  old  states  therefore  under 
took  the  part  of  breeding  and  rearing  slaves  till  they  attained 
to  physical  vigour,  and  the  new  that  of  using  up  in  the  deve 
lopment  of  their  virgin  resources  the  physical  vigour  which 
had  been  thus  obtained.* 

It  has  been  contended  that  the  constant  drain  of  slaves  must 

and  of  the  more  enterprising  of  the  poor,  the  population  steadily  augmented.  .  .  . 
If  the  apparent  wealth  of  the  country  was  not  increasing,  the  foundation  of  a  greater 
material  prosperity  was  being  laid  in  the  increase  of  the  number  of  small  but  intelli 
gent  proprietors,  and  in  the  constantly  growing  necessity  to  abandon  tobacco,  and 
substitute  grains,  or  varied  crops,  as  the  staple  productions  of  the  country.  The 
very  circumstance  that  reduced  the  old  pseudo-wealthy  proprietors  was  favourable 
to  this  change,  and  to  the  application  of  intelligence  to  a  more  prolitable  disposal  of 
the  remaining  elements  of  wealth  in  the  land.  While  multitudes  abandoned  their 
ancestral  acres  in  despair,  or  were  driven  from  them  by  the  recoil  of  their  fathers' 
inconsiderate  expenditures,  they  were  taken  possession  of  by  '  new  men,'  endowed 
with  more  hopefulness  and  energy  if  not  more  intelligence  than  the  old." — Seaboard 
Slave  States,  pp.  274—276. 

*  "  The  citizens  of  Virginia  indignantly  deny  that  they  breed  and  rear  slaves  for 
the  purpose  of  selling  them.  Not  only  do  those  who  interpose  this  denial  do  so,  in 
the  vast  majority  of  cases,  with  a  consciousness  of  truth ;  but,  perhaps,  in  no  single 
instance  can  it  be  truly  affirmed,  that  any  individual  slave  is  raised  for  the  purpose 
of  being  sold.  The  determination  to  rear  slaves  is  formed  and  executed  this  year, 
while  the  act  of  selling  may  not  take  place  until  twenty  years  hence.  The  two 
things  are  probably  never  resolved  and  consummated  as  parts  of  one  plan.  The 
fallacy  of  the  denial  interposed  by  the  people  of  Virginia  consists  in  this,  that, 
although  no  one  slave  may  be  raised  with  a  special  view  to  his  sale,  yet  the  entire 
business  of  raising  slaves  is  carried  on  with  reference  to  the  price  of  slaves,  and 
solely  in  consequence  of  the  price  of  slaves;  and  this  price  depends,  as  they  well 
know,  solely  upon  the  domestic  slave  trade.  Of  the  men  who  deny  for  themselves 
individually  the  fact  of  raising  slaves  for  the  purpose  of  selling  them,  too  many  make 
no  scruple  in  insisting  upon  markets  to  keep  up  the  price  of  slaves.  The  well-known 
lamentation  of  a  successful  candidate  for  the  governorship  of  Virginia,  uttered  with 
out  rebuke  before  a  Virginia  audience,  that  the  closing  of  the  mines  of  California  to 
slave  labour  had  prevented  the  price  of  an  able-bodied  negro  man  from  rising  to  five 
thousand  dollars,  is  only  a  single  example  of  the  freedom  and  publicity  with  which 
the  domestic  slave  trade  is  advocated  in  that  state." — Progress  of  Slavery,  pp. 
147-148. 


76  THE  INTERNAL  SLAVE  TRADE. 

have  its  effect  in  diminishing,  and  ultimately  exhausting,  the* 
slave  population  in  the  states  from  which  it  proceeds;  and  on 
this  ground  the  domestic  slave  trade  has  found  advocates 
amongst  persons  who  profess  themselves  opposed  to  slavery  in 
general,  as  tending  to  eifect  its  extinction  in  the  older  states. 
But  such  a  view,  if  sincerely  entertained,  can  only  find  credit 
with  those  who  are  unacquainted  with  the  laws  of  population, 
and  it  has  been  amply  refuted  by  the  experience  of  half  a  cen 
tury.  Far  from  conducing  in  the  slightest  degree  to  the  decline 
of  slavery  in  the  older  states,  the  inter-state  traffic  has  tended 
directly  to  ^establish  it,  and  the  slave  population  of  those  states 
has  steadily  increased  under  the  drain.  The  single  exception 
to  this  statement  is  the  State  of  Delaware,  and  Delaware  is  the 
only  one  of  those  states  in  which  the  sale  or  removal  of  slaves 
is  prohibited  by  law.  The  real  character  of  the  influence  ex 
ercised  by  the  internal  trade  on  the  breeding  states  was  strik 
ingly  shown  on  the  annexation  of  Texas.  That  event  occurred 
in  1844.  It  was  followed  by  a  great  increase  in  the  demand 
for  slaves  for  the  South,  and  with  what  effect  on  the  states 
which  supplied  them? — with  the  effect  of  a  positive  increase  in 
their  slave  population.  The  slave  population  of  the  principal 
slave-breeding  state,  Virginia,  had  declined  in  the  decade  pre 
vious  to  the  annexation,  but  at  the  end  of  the  following  decade 
it  was  found  to  have  increased.  The  explanation  of  this,  of 
course,  is  perfectly  simple.  Slaves  in  the  older  states  being 
of  little  value  for  agricultural  purposes,  there  is  no  inducement 
to  encourage  their  increase  so  long  as  agriculture  is  the  sole 
purpose  to  which  they  can  be  turned ;  but  with  the  increase  of 
the  slave  trade,  their  value  increases,  and  they  are,  therefore, 
raised  in  greater  numbers.  The  phenomenon  need  surprise  no 
one  who  has  attended  to  the  ordinary  facts  of  emigrating  coun 
tries.  The  United  Kingdom  is  of  all  European  countries  that 
from  which  emigration  is  greatest,  and  it  is  also  that  in  which 
population  increases  most  rapidly.  Emigration  from  Germany 
is  greater  than  from  France,  and  population  in  Germany  ad 
vances  more  rapidly  than  in  France.  Spain  and  Portugal  were 
once  colonizing  nations,  and  since  they  have  ceased  to  colonize, 
the  rate  at  which  their  population  increases  has  declined.  A 
more  apposite  illustration  is  that  of  cattle  breeding.  It  has 
never  been  found  that  the  opening  of  new  markets  for  cattle 
has  any  tendency  to  exhaust  the  breed  in  the  countries  which 
raise  them ;  and,  so  long  as  human  beings  are  subjected  to  pre 
cisely  the  same  influences  as  cattle,  it  is  idle  to  expect  a  differ 
ent  result.  In  each  case  the  power  of  multiplication  is  the 
same,  and  where  the  same  inducement  is  offered,  a  correspond 
ing  result  may  be  expected  to  follow. 


OUTLINE  OF  THE  ECONOMY  OF  SLA  VE  SOCIETIES.      77 

CHAPTER  V. 

INTERNAL   DEVELOPMENT    OF   SLAVE   SOCIETIES. 

IT  may  be  well  here  to  trace  briefly  the  salient  features  of  the 
6}rstem  which  in  the  previous  chapters  it  has  been  attempted  to 
describe.  A  race  superior  to  another  in  power  and  civilization 
holds  that  other  in  bondage,  compelling  it  to  work  for  its  profit. 
The  enslaved  race,  separated  broadly  from  the  dominant  one  in 
its  leading  physical  and  moral  attributes,  is  further  distin 
guished  from  it  by  the  indelible  mark  of  colour,  which  prevents 
the  growth  of  mutual  sympathy  and  transmits  to  posterity  the 
brand  of  its  disgrace.  Kept  in  compulsory  ignorance  and  de 
prived  of  all  motive  for  intelligent  exertion,  this  people  can 
only  furnish  its  possessors  with  the  crudest  form  of  manual 
labour.  It  is  thus  rendered  unfit  for  every  branch  of  industry 
which  requires,  in  any  but  the  lowest  forms,  the  exercise  of 
care,  intelligence,  or  skill,  and  is  virtually  restricted  to  die  pur- 
suit  of  agriculture.  In  agriculture  it  can  only  be  turned  to 
profitable  account  under  certain  special  conditions — in  raising 
crops  of  a  peculiar  kind  and  upon  soils  of  more  than  average 
fertility ;  while  these  by  its  thriftless  methods  it  tends  con 
stantly  to  exhaust.  The  labour  of  the  enslaved  race  is  thus  in 
practice  confined  to  the  production  of  a  few  leading  staples  • 
but,  through  the  medium  of  foreign  trade,  these  few  commodi 
ties  become  the  means  of  furnishing  its  masters  with  all  the 
conveniences  and  comforts  of  life — the  product  of  intelligence 
and  skill  in  countries  where  labour  is  free.  Further,  it  was 
seen  that  the  defects  of  servile  labour  are  best  neutralized,  and 
such  advantages  as  it  possesses  best  turned  to  account,  where 
the  scale  of  the  operations  is  large, — a  circumstance,  which, ' 
by  placing  a  premium  on  the  employment  of  large  capitals, 
has  gradual^  led  to  the  accumulation  of  the  whole  wealth  of 
the  country  in  the  hands  of  a  small  number  of  persons.  Four 
million  slaves  have  thus  come  into  the  possession  of  masters 
less  than  one- tenth  of  their  number,  by  whom  they  are  held  as 
chattel  property ;  while  the  rest  of  the  dominant  race,  more 
numerous  than  slaveholders  and  their  slaves  together,  squat 
over  the  vast  area  which  slave  labour  is  too  unskilful  to  culti 
vate,  where  by  hunting  and  fishing,  by  plunder  or  by  lawless 
adventure,  they  eke  out  a  precarious  livelihood.  Three  leading 
elements  are  thus  presented  by  the  economy  of  the  slave  states 
— a  few  planters  cultivating  the  richest  soils,  a  multitude  of 
slaves  toiling  for  their  profit,  the  bulk  of  the  white  population 


78  NO  ELEMENT  OF  PROGRESS 

dispersed  in  a  semi-savage  condition  over  a  vast  territory.  In 
course  of  time  the  system  begins  to  bear  its  fruit.  The  more 
fertile  soils  of  the  country,  tasked  again  arid  again  to  render 
the  same  products,  at  length  become  exhausted,  and  refuse  any 
longer  to  yield  up  their  riches  to  servile  hands;  but  there  are 
new  soils  within  reach  which  the  plough  has  not  yet  touched, 
regions  of  high  fertility,  pre-eminently  fitted  for  the  cultivation 
of  slave  products,  bordering  however  on  the  tropics,  and  un 
favourable  to  human  life  when  engaged  in  severe  toil.  At  this 
point  a  new  phase  of  the  sj^stem  discloses  itself.  A  division  of 
labour  takes  place.  A  portion  of  the  slaveholders  with  their 
slave  bands  move'  forward  to  occupy  the  new  territory,  while 
the  remainder,  holding  to  their  old  seats,  become  the  breeders 
of  slaves  for  those  who  have  left  them,  and  take,  as  their  part, 
the  repairing  from  their  more  healthy  populations  the  waste  of 
slave  life  produced  by  tropical  toil.  Thus,  as  the  domain  of 
slavery  is  extended,  its  organization  becomes  more  complete, 
and  the  fate  of  the  slave  population  more  harsh  and  hopeless. 
Slavery  in  its  simple  and  primitive  form  is  developed  into 
slavery  supported  by  a  slave  trade — into  slavery  exp-ansive, 
aggressive,  destructive  of  human  life,  regardless  of  human  ties, 
— into  slavery  in  its  most  dangerous  and  most  atrocious  form ; 
and  for  the  system  thus  matured  a  secure  basis  is  afforded  by 
the  principles  of  population.  Such  is  an  outline  of  the  econo 
my  of  society  in  the  Slave  States  of  North  America,  as  I  have 
ventured  to  describe  it;  and  the  condition  of  facts  which  it 
discloses  goes  far,  as  it  seems  to  me,  to  establish  the  conclusion 
that  it  is  a  structure  essentially  different  from  any  form  of  so 
cial  life  which  has  hitherto  been  known  among  progressive 
communities,  and  one  which,  if  allowed  to  proceed  in  its  normal 
development  undisturbed  by  intervention  from  without,  can 
only  conduct  to  one  issue — an  organized  barbarism  of  the  most 
relentless  and  formidable  kind. 

But  it  may  be  well  to  pursue  this  inquiry  somewhat  further. 
If  the  germs  of  a  future  civilization  are  contained  in  the  social 
system  which  has  been  described,  in  what  department  of  it  are 
they  to  be  found  ?  Among  the  mean  whites  ?  Among  the 
slaves  ?  Among  the  slave  masters  ? 

The  mean  whites,  as  has  been  shown,  are  the  natural  growth 
of  the  slave  system ;  their  existence  and  character  flowing 
necessarily  from  two  facts — the  slaves,  which  render  the  capital 
ists  independent  of  their  services,*  and  the  wilderness,  the 

*  "  The,  rich,"  said  General  Marion,  and  in  these  few  words  he  sketched  the 
whole  working  of  slavery,  "  have  no  need  of  the  poor,  because  they  have  their  own 
elaves  to  do  their  work." 


IN  SLA  VE  COMMUNITIES.  79 

constant  feature  of  slave  countries,  which  enables  them  to  exist 
without  engaging  in  regular  work.  There  is  no  capital  to  sup 
port  them  as  hired  labourers,  and  they  have  the  means  of  sub 
sisting,  in  a  semi-savage  condition,  without  it.  Under  these 
circumstance?,  by  what  steps  are  they  to  advance  to  an  improve 
ment  of  their  condition? 

It  will  perhaps  be  thought  that  with  a  vast  unappropriated 
territory  around  them  the  mean  whites  may  be  expected  in 
time  to  become  peasant  proprietors,  and  to  cultivate  the  dis 
tricts  which  they  now  merely  occupy.  This  is  undoubtedly 
what  would  happen  with  an  influx  of  Northern  settlers.  But 
the  mean  whites  lack  for  such  a  lot  two  indispensable  requisites, 
capital  and  industry.  Had  they  the  latter,  they  might  perhaps 
in  time  acquire  the  former  ;  but  regular  industry  is  only  known 
to  them  as  the  vocation  of  slaves,  and  it  is  the  one  fate  which 
above  all  others  they  desire  to  avoid.  They  will  for  a  time, 
indeed,  when  pressed  for  food,  their  ordinary  resources  of 
hunting  or  plunder  failing  them,  hire  themselves  out  for  occa 
sional  services  ;  but,  so  soon  as  they  have  satisfied  the  imme 
diate  need,  they  hasten  to  escape  from  the  degradation  of 
industry,  and  are  as  eager  as  Indians  to  return  to  their 
wilds. 

Another  means  of  redemption  is  sometimes  imagined  for 
the  mean  whites.  It  is  thought  that,  with  the  progress  of 
population  in  the  Slave  States,  they  will  ultimately  be  forced 
into  competition  with  the  slaves,  and  that,  this  competition 
once  effectually  commenced,  the  whites  once  engaged  in  regular 
industry,  the  superiority  of  free  to  servile  labour  will  become 
manifest,  and  will  gradually  lead  to  the  displacement  of  the 
latter.  In  this  way,  it  is  anticipated,  the  problem  of  abolishing 
slavery,  and  that  of  elevating  the  white  population,  may  in  the 
natural  course  of  events  be  effectually  solved  by  the  same  pro 
cess.  Unfortunately  this  cheering  view  is  entirely  unsustained 
by  any  foundation  of  fact.  Population  in  slave  communities 
follows  laws  of  growth  of  its  own.  It  increases,  it  is  true,  but 
by  dispersion,  not  by  concentration,  and  consequently  the  pres 
sure  upon  the  poor  white,  which  it  is  assumed  will  force  him 
into  competition  with  the  slave,  is  never  likely  to  be  greater 
than  at  the  present  moment.  In  fact  it  has  now  in  many  districts 
reached  the  starvation  point,  but  without  producing  any  of  the 
effects  which  are  anticipated  from  it.  But,  again,  the  free 
labour  of  the  South  possesses  none  of  that  superiority  to  slave 
labour,  which  is  characteristic  of  free  labour  when  reared  in 
free  communities.  This  is  a  distinction  which  in  economic 


80          FREE  LABOUR  THE  BEST  PRODUCTIVE  AGENT. 

reasonings  on  slavery  is  frequently  overlooked,*  but  which  it 
is  all-important  to  bear  in  mind.  The  free  labourer  reared  in 
free  communities,  energetic,  intelligent,  animated  by  the  im 
pulse  of  acquiring  property,  and  trained  to  habits  of  thrift,  is 
the  best  productive  agent  in  the  world,  and,  when  brought  into 
competition  with  the  slave,  will,  except  under  very  exceptional 
circumstances  (such  as  existed  when  the  continent  was  first 
settled),  prove  more  than  a  match  for  him.  But  the  free 
labourer  of  the  South,  blighted  physically  and  morally  by  the 
presence  of  slavery,  and  trained  in  habits  more  suited  to  savage 
than  to  industrial  life,  easily  succumbs  in  the  competition.  In 
fact  the  experiment  is  being  constantly  tried  in  the  Southern 
States,  and  always  with  the  same  result.  On  the  relative 
merits  of  slave  and  free  labour — such  free  labour  as  the  Slave 
States  can  produce — there  is  but  one  opinion  among  the  planters. 
It  is  universally  agreed  that  the  labour  of  the  mean  whitest  is 
more  inefficient,  more  unreliable,  more  unmanageable  than 
even  the  crude  efforts  of  the  slaves.  If  slavery  in  the  South 
is  to  be  displaced  by  free  industry,  it  can  never  be  through  the 
competition  of  such  free  industry  as  this. 

*  Thus  a  writer  in  the  Saturday  Review  (Nov.  2,  1861),  in  noticing  a  work  of 
Mr.  Olmsted's,  reasons  as  follows: — "It  would  be  hasty  to  infer,  as  a  great  many 
philanthropists  have  done,  that  free  labour  would  answer  better  than  slave  labour 
in  the  South.  The  Southern  planters  are  keen  enough  speculators  to  have  disco 
vered  the  fact  if  it  were  true.  In  reality  the  experiment  has  been  tried  and  resulted 
in  favour  of  slave  labour."  The  experiment  no  doubt  has  been  tried,  and  with  the 
result  alleged  ;  but  how  far  the  experiment,  as  it  has  been  conducted,  is  conclusive, 
the  reader  will  be  enabled  to  judge  when  he  reads  the  following  passage  from  Mr. 
Olmsted,  in  a  review  of  one  of  whose  works  the  above  argument  occurred: — "  The 
labourer,  who  in  New  York  gave  a  certain  amount  of  labour  for  his  wages  in  a  day, 
soon  finds  in  Virginia  that  the  ordinary  measure  of  labour  is  smaller  than  in  New 
York :  a  '  day's  work'  or  a  month's  does  not  mean  the  same  that  it  did  in  New 
York.  He  naturally  adapts  his  wares  to  the  market.  .  .  .  The  labourer,  finding 
that  the  capitalists  of  Virginia  are  accustomed  to  pay  for  a  poor  article  at  a  high 
price,  prefers  to  furnish  them  the  poor  article  at  their  usual  price,  rather  than  a 
better  article,  unless  at  a  more  than  correspondingly  better  price.  .  .  .  Now  let  the 
white  labourer  come  here  from  the  North  or  from  Europe — his  nature  demands  a 
social  life — shall  he  associate  with  the  poor,  slavish,  degraded  negro,  with  whom 
labour  and  punishment  are  almost  synonymous  ?  or  shall  he  be  the  friend  and  com 
panion  of  the  white  man  ?  .  .  .  Associating  with  either  or  both,  is  it  not  inevitable 
that  he  will  be  rapidly  demoralized — that  he  will  soon  learn  to  hate  labour,  give  as 
little  of  it  for  his  hire  as  he  can,  become  base,  cowardly,  faithless, — '  worse  than  a 
nigger'  ?"  The  case  is  simple.  The  moral  atmosphere  generated  by  slavery  in  the 
South  corrupts  the  free  labourer,  whether  native  or  imported :  thus  corrupted,  he 
fails  in  competition  with  the  slave ;  but  does  it  follow  from  this  that,  if  slavery  no 
longer  existed,  free  labour  would  be  less  efficient  in  the  South  than  slave  labour  is 
at  present  ?  For  that  is  the  point. 

\  And  it  may  be  added,  of  such  free  labourers  as  will  consent  to  the  degradation 
of  living  in  a  slave  community. 


OF  POPULA TIOF.  81 

It  does  not  appear,  therefore,  in  what  manner  habits  of  regu 
lar  industry  can  ever  be  acquired  by  the  mass  of  the  popula 
tion  of  the  Southern  States  while  under  a  slave  regime.  The 
demoralization  produced  by  the  presence  of  a  degraded  class 
renders  the  white  man  at  once  an  unwilling  and  an  inefficient 
labourer ;  and  the  external  incidents  of  slavery  afford  him  the 
means  of  existing  without  engaging  in  regular  toil.  The  ques 
tion  has,  in  truth,  passed  beyond  the. region  of  speculation. 
For  two  hundred  years  it  has  been  submitted  to  the  proof;  and 
the  mean  whites  are  as  far  now  from  having  made  any  pro 
gress  in  habits  of  regular  industry  as  they  were  at  the  com 
mencement  of  the  period. 

The  result,  then,  at  which  we  arrive  is,  that  regular  industry 
is  not  to  be  expected  from  the  mass  of  the  free  people  of  the 
Southern  States  while  slavery  continues.  Let  us  for  a  moment 
reflect  upon  some  of  the  consequences  involved  in  this  single 
fact. 

And,  first,  it  is  evident  that  under  these  conditions  population! 
in  the  Slave  States  must  ever  remain  sparse ;  for  density  of 
population  is  the  result  of  concentrated  wealth,  and  concen 
trated  wealth  flows  from  the  steady  pursuit  of  systematic  in 
dustry.  What  are  the  facts  ?  Over  the  whole  area  of  the 
Slave  States  the  average  density  of  population  does  not  exceed 
11.29  persons  to  the  square  mile.  It  is  true  a  large  portion  of 
the  region  included  in  this  average  has  but  recently  been 
acquired,  and  cannot  be  considered  as  having  yet  received  its 
full  complement  of  inhabitants.  Let  us,  then,  confine  our  ob 
servations  to  the  older  states.  If  population  be-  capable  of 
becoming  dense  under  slave  institutions,  it  should  have  realized 
this  condition  in  Virginia.  This  state  has  been  for  two  hun 
dred  and  fifty  years  the  seat  of  the  Anglo-Saxon,  race,  and  the 
chosen  field  of  its  industry  :  it  abounds  in  natural  advantages  ; 
its  climate  is  remarkably  salubrious.  What,,  then,  is  the  result 
of  the  experiment  in  Virginia  ?  It  appears  from  the  census  of 
1850,  that,  after  an  industrial  career  of  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years,  this  country  contained  an  average  of  23  persons  to  the 
square  mile!  This,  however,  does  not  adequately  represent 
the  case  ;  for  of  these  23  persons  one-third  on  an  average  were- 
slaves.  Deducting  these,  the  density  of  population  in  Virgi 
nia — of  population  among  whom  knowledge  is  not  considered 
contraband,  of  population  who  are  capable  of  mixing  together 
as  fellow-citizen  (which  is  the  point  essential  to  our  argument) 
— the  density  of  this  population  is  represented  by  the  propor 
tion  of  15  persons  to  the  square  mile  !  Compare  this  with  the 
progress  of  population  in  an  area  of  the  Free  States  naturally 

6 


82  SPARSENESS  OF  POPULATION". 

less  favourable  to  the  multiplication  of  people  and  not  so  long 
settled, — with  the  area  comprised  by  Massachusetts,  Rhode 
Island,  Connecticut,  New  Jersey,  New  York,  and  Pennsylvania 
— and  what  do  we  find  ?  Population  has  here,  in  a  shorter 
time,  and  under  external  conditions  less  favourable,  reached  an 
average  density  of  82  persons  to  the  square  mile.  For  equal 
areas  in  the  Free  and  Slave  States  there  are  thus  considerably 
more  than  five  persons  capable  of  taking  part  in  the  business 
of  civilized  life  in  the  former  for  one  in  the  latter.  Population 
under  slave  institutions,  in  fact,  only  increases  by  dispersion. 
Fifteen  persons  to  the  square  mile  represent  the  maximum 
density  which  population  under  the  most  favourable  circum 
stances  is,  with  slavery,  capable  of  attaining.*  Now,  this 
state  of  things  is  incompatible  with  civilized  progress.  Under 
such  conditions  social  intercourse  cannot  exist ;  popular  educa 
tion  becomes  impracticable ;  roads,  canals,  railways,  must  be 
losing  speculations ;  in  short,  all  the  civilizing  agencies  of 
highest  value  are,  by  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  excluded. 
Among  a  people  so  dispersed,  for  example,  how  is  popular  edu 
cation  to  be  carried  on?  Not  to  dwell  upon  the  obstacles  pre 
sented  to  the  diffusion  of  knowledge  by  the  mental  habits  of  a 
people  accustomed  to  the  life  of  the  mean  whites — a  life  alter 
nating  between  listless  vagrancy  and  the  excitement  of  maraud 
ing  expeditions — the  mere  physical  difficulties  of  the  problem 
—the  task  of  bringing  together  from  a  population  so  dispersed 
the  materials  of  a  school — would  be  such  as  might  well  dis 
courage  the  most  determined  zeal.  In  point  of  fact,  all  attempts 
at  conveying  education  to  the  bulk  of  the  people  in  the  South 
ern  States  have  proved  costly  failures.  Experiments  have 
been  made  in  some  of  the  states,  and  always  with  the  same 
result,  f  The  moral  and  physical  difficulties  of  the  problem 
have  proved  insuperable ;  and  the  mass  of  the  people  remains, 
and  under  the  present  social  system  ever  must  remain,  entirely 
uninstructcd. 

Nor  is  this  the  only  way  in  which  sparseness  of  population 
operates  unfavourably  on  the  intellectual  progress  of  a  people. 
Scarcely  less  important  than  school  teaching,  as  instruments  of 
popular  education,  are  the  societies  established  for  the  mutual 
improvement  of  those  who  take  part  in  them,  such  as  mecha- 

*  The  density  of  population  in  Delaware,  Maryland,  and  Kentucky,  is  no  doubt 
greater  than  this.;  but  it  is  because  these  States  are  occupied,  over  considerable  dis 
tricts,  with  a  free  labouring  peasantry,  because  in  fact  in  these  districts  slavery  has 
been  abolished.  This  is  the  case  with  Western  Virginia  also  to  a  considerable  ex 
tent,  and  doubtless  raises  the  average  of  the  whole  country  above  what  a  purely 
servile  regime  would  produce. 

f  See  Olmsted's  Seaboard  Slave  States,  pp.  291,  292,  366,  367,  503. 


DISTASTE  FOR  INDUSTRY.  83 

nics'  institutes,  and  literary  and  scientific  associations,  of  which 
such  extensive  HFC  is  made  in  this  country  and  in  the  Northern 
States.  But  from  this  efficacious  mode  of  awakening  intelli 
gence,  a  people,  whose  social  institutions  prevent  it  from  attain 
ing  greater  concentration  than  is  reached  by  the  people  of  the 
South,  is  entirely  excluded.* 

Lastly,  how  are  the  means  of  communication  to  be  deve 
loped  under  such  conditions  ?  How  are  railways  to  be  made 
profitable  in  a  population  of  fifteen  persons  to  the  square  mile  I 
Railways,  no  doubt,  have  been  made  in  the  South,  but  with 
more  ad  vantage  to  the  travellers  than  to  the  shareholders.  In 
South  Carolina  a  train  has  been  known  to  travel  a  hundred 
miles  with  a  single  passenger,  f 

The  mean  whites  seem  thus,  under  an  inexorable  law,  to  be 
bound  to  their  present  fate  by  the  same  chain  which  holds  the 
slave  to  his.  Slavery  produces  distaste  for  industry.  Distaste 
for  industry,  coexisting  with  a  wilderness  which  is  also  the  fruit 
of  slavery,  disperses  population  over  vast  areas  as  the  one  con 
dition  of  its  increase.  Among  such  a  people  the  requisites  of 
progress  do  not  exist ;  the  very  elements  of  civilization  are 
wanting. 

If,  then,  society  is  to  advance  in  the  South,  we  must  look 
somewhere  else  than  among  the  mass  of  the  white  population 
for  the  motive  principle  which  is  to  propel  it.  And  where  are 
we  to  look  ?  Southern  society  furnishes  but  two  other  elements 
— the  slaves  and  their  masters.  What  germ  of  hope  does 
either  of  these  present?  It'  civilization  is  to  spring  up  among 
the  negro  race,  it  will  scarcely  be  contended  that  this  will  hap 
pen  while  they  are  still  slaves  ;  and  if  the  present  ruling  class 
are  ever  to  rise  above  the  existing  type,  it  must  be  in  some 
other  capacity  than  as  slaveholders.  The  whole  question  there 
fore  turns  ultimately  on  the  chances  of  slave  emancipation. 
Slave  emancipation  may,  of  course,  be  forced  upon  the  South 
by  pressure  from  without ;  but  the  point  which  we  have  now 
to  consider  is  the  prospect  of  this  result  being  attained  in  the 
natural  course  of  its  internal  development. 


*  Some  statistics  bearing  upon  this  aspect  of  the  question  have  been  given  by 
Mr.  Helper,  which  are  sufficiently  striking.  It  appears  that  the  number  of  public 
libraries  throughout  the  whole  of  the  Slave  States  are  only  695  against  14,911  in 
the  Free  States ;  or  about  1  public  library  in  the  South  for  21  in  the  North.  Again, 
the  number  of  volumes  in  public  libraries  in  the  Slave  States  is  649,577  ;  while  the 
number  in  public  libraries  in  the  Free  States  is  3,888,284;  that  is  to  say,  in  the  pro 
portion  of  about  1  to  6. — (Helper's  Impending  Crisis,  p.  337.)  Probably,  were  the 
quality  of  the  literature  as  well  as  the  quantity  given,  the  result  would  be  still  more 
significant. 

f  See  Stirling's  Letters  from  the  Slave  States,  p  265. 


34  OBSTACLES  TO  EMANCIPATION. 

And  first  let  us  observe  the  inherent  difficulty  of  the  pro 
blem.  It  was  shown  in  a  former  chapter  that  in  the  system  of 
North  American  slavery,  obstacles  exist  to  the  emancipation  of 
the  slave  which  had  no  place  among  the  ancients.  It  may  now 
be  added  that  the  difficulties  of  slave  emancipation  in  the  pre 
sent  Slave  States  are  far  greater  than  those  which  were  success 
fully  encountered  in  the  Northern.  Owing  to  causes  already 
explained*  slavery  had  never  taken  very  firm  root  in  the  North  : 
it  was  becoming,  with  the  growth  of  society,  constantly  less 
profitable  :  the  total  number  of  slaves  formed  but  a  small  frac 
tion  of  the  whole  population :  above  all,  the  Northern  States 
had  in  the  markets  of  the  South  a  ready  means  of  ridding 
themselves,  at  trifling  loss,  of  a  class  which  had  become  an 
incumbrance.  For,  to  borrow  the  words  of  De  Tocqueville, 
the  overthrow  of  slavery  in  the  Northern  States  was  effected 
"by  abolishing  the  principle  of  slavery,  not  by  setting  the 
slaves  free."  The  Northern  people  did  not  emancipate  negroes 
who  were  enslaved,  but  they  provided  for  the  future  extinction 
of  slavery  by  legislating  for  the  freedom  of  their  offspring. 
The  operation  of  this  plan  may  be  readily  supposed.  The 
future  offspring  of  the  slave  having  by  the  law  of  a  particular 
state  been  declared  free,  the  slave  himself  lost  a  portion  of  his 
value  in  that  state.  But  in  the  South  these  laws  had  no  force, 
and  consequently  in  the  South  the  value  of  the  slave  was  unal 
tered  by  the  change.  The  effect,  therefore,  of  the  Northern 
measures  of  abolition  was,  fur  the  most  part,  sirnply  to  transfer 
Northern  slaves  to  Southern  markets.  In  this  way,  by  an  easy 
process,  without  incurring  any  social  danger,  and  at  slight 
pecuniary  loss,  the.  Northern  States  got  rid  of  slavery.  The 
problem  of  enfranchisement  in  the  South  is  of  a  very  different 
character.  Slavery,  instead  of  being,  as  it  always  was  in  the 
North,  but  one,  and  an  unimportant  one,  among  many  modes 
of  industry,  is  there  virtually  the  sole  industrial  instrument : 
instead  of  comprising  an  insignificant  fraction  of  the  whole 
population,  it  comprises  throughout  the  whole  South  one-third, 
and  in  some  States  one-half:  it  numbers  altogether  four  millions 
of  people  :  lastly,  the  South  is  wholly  without  that  easy  means 
of  shuffling  off  slavery  which  its  own  markets  provided  for  the 
North.  The  two  cases  are  thus  wholly  unlike,  and  the  sponta 
neous  disappearance  of  slavery  from  the  Northern  section  of 
the  Union  gives  little  ground  to  hope  for  a  similar  result  in  the 
present  Slave  States. 

And  still  less  warranted  are  we  in  expecting  a  policy  of 
emancipation  from  the  South  by  the  history  of  British  emanci 
pation  in  the  "West  Indies ;  for  that  event  was  not  brought 


OBSTACLES  TO  EMANCIPATION.  85 

about  in  the  natural  course  of  social  improvement  in  those 
islands,  but  was  forced  upon  them  by  the  mother  nation,  in  the 
face  of  the  protests  and  remonstrances  of  their  ruling  classes. 
Instead  of  being  the  natural  result  of  principles  called  into  action 
under  slave  institutions,  it  was  only  accomplished  with  difficulty 
through  the  direct  and  forcible  interposition  of  an  external  au 
thority. 

So  far  as  to  ancient  and  modern  precedents  :  they  are  palpa 
bly  inapplicable  to  the  present  case.  But  there  are  those  who 
anticipate  the  growth  of  a  liberal  policy  in  the  South  from  the 
gradual  operation  of  economic  causes  in  ultimately  identifying 
the  interests  of  planters  with  those  of  the  general  community.* 
It  will  be  worth  while  briefly  to  examine  the  argument  which 
is  founded  upon  this  view  of  the  case.  It  is  said  that  free  labour 
(regarded  from  a  purely  economic  point  of  view — moral  consi 
derations  apart)  being  superior  to  slave  labour,  and  this  princi 
ple  being  exemplified  by  the  whole  industrial  history  of  the 
Northern  and  Southern  States — the  former,  though  naturally 
less  fertile,  having  far  outstripped  the  latter  in  the  race  of  ma. 
terial  prosperity — the  truth  must  ultimately  be  recognised  by 
the  slaveholders  themselves,  and  that,  so  soon  as  this  happens, 
they  will  be  led  by  self-interest  to  adopt  a  policy  of  emancipa 
tion.  The  case  may  indeed  be  put  more  strongly  than  this ; 
for  slavery  has  not  merely  thwarted  the  general  prosperity  of 
the  South,  it  may  even  be  shown  to  have  operated  to  the  special 
detriment  of  the  particular  class  for  whose  exclusive  behoof  it 
is  maintained.  For  the  slaveholders  of  the  South  are  also  its 
landed  proprietors,  and  the  uniform  effect  of  slavery  (as  has 


*  Mr.  Stirling  relies  upon  the  following  considerations  as  containing  the  solution 
of  the  problem.  "  "Within  the  last  ten  or  fifteen  years  the  value  of  slaves  has  risen 
fifty  per  cent  at  least.  During  the  same  time  the  price  of  bacon  has  risen  1 00  to 
200  percent.  Let  this  process  only  be  continued  for  ten  years  longer,  and  where 
will  be  the  profits  of  the  cotton-planter  ?  And  here  we  may  perhaps  find  the  long- 
looked-for  solution  of  the  nigger  question.  "When  slave-labour  becomes  unprofitable 
the  slave  will  be  emancipated.  South  Carolina  herself  will  turn  abolitionist  when 
slavery  ceases  to  pay.  When  she  finds  that  a  brutalized  race  cannot  and  will  not 
give  as  much  efficient  labour  for  the  money  as  a  hired  class  of  superior  workers,  it  is 
possible  that  she  may  lay  aside  the  cowhide,  and  offer  wages  to  her  niggers." — Letters 
from  Slave  States,  pp.  182,  183.  The  argument  is  palpably  fallacious.  It  is  the 
same  as  if  one  were  to  argue  that  the  high  rent  of  land  must  ultimately  destroy 
agriculture.  In  each  case  the  high  price  of  the  natural  agent — land  or  slaves — re 
sults  from  the  comparative  profitableness  of  capital  invested  in  the  employment  of 
one  or  the  other.  When  the  high  price  of  land  leads  landlords  to  throw  up  their 
estates,  an  analogous  course  of  conduct  may  be  expected  from  slaveholders  from  an 
analogous  inducement.  The  higfc price  of  the  slave's  food  is  scarcely  to  the  point, 
since  this  must  tell  also  against  the  free  labourer  :  at  all  events,  so  long  as  the  slave 
fetches  any  price,  it  is  a  proof  that  he  is  considered  to  be  worth  at  least  more  than 
his  keep. 


86  ECONOMIC  MOTIVES  NOT  TO  BE  RELIED  ON. 

been  shown  in  a  former  part  of  this  essay)  has  been,  by  con 
fining  cultivation  to  the  rich  soils,  to  prevent  the  growth  of 
rent.  So  powerfully,  indeed,  has  this  cause  operated,  that  it 
has  been  calculated,  apparently  upon  good  grounds,*  that  the 
mere  difference  in  rent  between  the  returns  from  lands  of  equal 
quality  in  the  Free  and  Slave  States,  would  be  more  than  suffi 
cient  to  buy  up  the  whole  slave  property  of  the  South.  By  the 
abolition  of  slavery  in  that  country,  therefore,  not  merely  would 
the  general  prosperity  of  the  inhabitants  be  promoted,  but, 
by  the  rise  of  rent  which  would  be  the  consequence  of  this 
measure,  there  would  result  to  slaveholders  a  special  gain — a 
gain  which,  it  may  reasonably  be  thought,  would  form  a  libe 
ral  compensation  for  any  temporary  inconvenience  they  might 
suffer  from  the  change.  Considerations  so  obvious,  it  is  argued, 
must  in  the  end  have  their  effect  on  the  minds  of  the  ruling 
class  in  the  South,  and  must  lead  them  before  long  to  abolish  a 
system  which  is  fraught  with  such  baleful  effects  to  the  country 
and  to  themselves. 

To  the  soundness  of  this  reasoning,  so  far  as  it  proves  the 
beneficial  results  which  would  follow  from  the  abolition  of  sla 
very,  I  do  not  think  that  any  valid  objection  can  be  offered. 
It  appears  to  me  as  demonstrable  as  any  proposition  in  Euclid, 
that,  extending  our  view  over  some  generations,  slavery  has 
acted  injuriously  on  every  class  and  every  interest  in  the  South, 
and  that  its  continued  maintenance  is  absolutely  incompatible 
with  the  full  development  of  the  resources  of  the  country. 
Nevertheless  it  would,  I  conceive,  be  infinitely  precarious  from 
this  position  to  infer  that  slaveholders  will  ever  be  induced 
voluntarily  to  abolish  slavery.  The  slaveholders  of  the  South 
are  perfectly  aware  of  the  superior  prosperity  of  the  Free 
States :  it  is  with  them  a  subject  of  bitter  mortification  and 
envy;  but,  with  the  most  conclusive  evidence  before  their  eyes, 
they  persist  in  attributing  this  to  every  cause  but  the  right  one. 
Supposing,  however,  that  they  are  in  the  end  convinced,  by 
such  arguments  as  I  have  referred  to,  of  the  injurious  effects  of 
their  system,  and  that  they  are  satisfied  that  the  immediate  loss 
from  the  abolition  of  slavery  would  be  more  than  made  good 
to  their  descendants  in  the  future  increase  in  the  value  of  their 
land,  still  I  apprehend  that  they  would  be  as  far  as  ever  from 
being  won  over  to  a  policy  of  abolition.  For,  whatever  be  the 
future  advantages  which  may  be  expected  from  th0  change, 
it  is  vain  to  deny  that  the  transition  from  slavery  to  freedom 
could  not  be  effected  without  great  inconvenience,  loss,  and, 
doubtless,  in  many  cases,  ruin,  to  the  present  race  of  slave- 


*  See  Olmsted's  Seaboard  Slave  States,  pp.  170,  171. 


SLAVERY  A  POLITICAL  AND  SOCIAL  INSTRUMENT.      87 

holders.  The  accumulated  results  of  two  hundred  years  of 
tyranny,  cruelty,  and  disregard  of  the  first  of  human  rights  are 
not  thus  easily  evaded.  A  sacrifice  there  would  need  to  be.* 
And  it  is  vain  to  expect  that  slaveholders,  of  whose  system 
se'fishness  is  the  fundamental  principle,  and  whose  profits  are 
purchased,  not  merely  at  the  cost  of  misery  to  the  whole  race 
of  living  men,  but  at  the  cost  of  the  future  prosperity  of  their 
own  descendants,  whose  interests  in  the  soil  their  spendthrift 
system  anticipates — it  is  vain  to  expect  that  they  of  all  men 
should  voluntarily  devote  themselves  for  the  good  of  their 
country.  So  long,  therefore,  as  slaveholders  have  at  their  dis 
posal  an  unlimited  extent  of  fertile  soil  suited  to  slave  products, 
it  is,  I  think,  vain  to  hope  that  the  question  of  slavery  will  ever 
find  its  solution  in  economic  motives.  But,  in  truth,  it  is  idle 
to  argue  this  question  on  purely  economic  grounds.  It  is  not 
simply  as  a  productive  instrument  that  slavery  is  valued  by  its 
supporters.  It  is  far  rather  for  its  social  and  political  results — 
as  the  means  of  upholding  a  form  of  society  in  which  slave 
holders  are  the  sole  depositaries  of  social  prestige  and  political 
power,  as  the  "  corner  stone"  of  an  edifice  of  which  they  are 
the  masters — that  the  system  is  prized.  Abolish  slavery  and 
you  introduce  a  new  order  of  things,  in  which  the  ascendancy 
of  the  men  who  now  rule  in  the  South  would  be  at  an  end. 
An  immigration  of  new  men  would  set  in  rapidly  from  various 
quarters.  The  planters  and  their  adherents  would  soon  be 
placed  in  a  hopeless  minority  in  their  old  dominions.  New 
interests  would  take  root  and  grow  ;  new  social  ideas  would 
germinate  ;  new  political  combinations  would  be  formed  ;  and 
the  power  and  hopes  of  the  party  which  has  long  swayed  the 
politics  of  the  Union,  and  which  now  seeks  to  break  loose  from 
that  Union  in  order  to  secure  a  free  career  for  the  accomplish 
ment  of  bolder  designs,  would  be  gone  for  ever.  It  is  this 
which  constitutes  the  real  strength  of  slavery  in  the  Southern 
States,  and  which  precludes  even  the  momentary  admission  by 
the  dominant  party  there  of  any  proposition  which  has  abolition 
for  its  object. 

And  in  view  of  this  aspect  of  North  American  slavery,  we 
may  see  how  perfectly  futile,  how  absolutely  childish,  is  the 
suggestion,  that  the  Slave  party  should  be  bought  ov  jr  by  the 
Federal  government  through  the  offer  of  a  liberal  compensation, 
after  the  precedent  "of  Great  Britain  dealing  with  her  West 
Indian  possessions.  Putting  aside  the  magnitude  of  the  sum, 

*  The  West  Indian  experiment,  I  conceive,  proves  this  as  conclusively  as  it  proves 
that  the  ultimate  and  permanent  results  of  emancipation  are  beneficial  to  the  whole 
country  in  the  Highest  degree. 


88  SLA  VE  CODE  OF  ETHICS. 

which,  at  the  price  of  slaves  which  recently  prevailed,  would 
certainly  not  be  less  than  £300,000,000  sterling,  and  the  impos 
sibility  of  raising  it  in  the  present  state  of  American  credit,  who 
that  knows  anything  of  the  aims  of  the  Southern  party  can  sup 
pose  that  the  proposal,  if  made,  would  not  be  rejected  with 
scorn  ?*  The  suggestion  supposes  that  men  who  have  long 
held  paramount  influence  over  the  North  American  continent, 
and  who  are  probably  now  meditating  plans  of  annexation  and 
conquest,  would  at  once  abandon  their  position  as  the  chiefs  of 
an  independent  confederacy,  and  forego  their  ambitions 
schemes,  for  what? — for  a  sum  of  money  which,  if  well  invested, 
might  perhaps  enable  them  and  their  descendants  to  vegetate 
in  peaceful  obscurity ! 

But  there  is  yet  another  influence,  to  be  taken  account  of  in 
arguing  this  question.  Slavery  has  not  merely  determined  the 
general  form  and  character  of  the  social  and  political  economy 
of  the  Southern  States,  it  has  entered  into  the  soul  of  the  peo 
ple,  and  has  generated  a  code  of  ethics  and  a  type  of  Chris 
tianity  adapted  to  its  peculiar  requirements. 

At  the  epoch  of  the  revolution,  as  has  been  already  intimated, 
slavery  was  regarded  by  all  the  eminent  men  who  took  part  in 
that  movement  as  essentially  an  evil — an  evil  which  might 
indee4  be  palliated  as  having  come  down  to  that  generation  from 
an  earlier  and  less  enlightened  age,  and  which,  having  intwined 
itself  with  the  institutions  of  the  country,  required  to  be  deli 
cately  dealt  with — but  still  an  evil,  indefensible  on  moral  and 
religious  grounds,  and  which  ought  not  to  be  permanently 
endured.  The  Convention  of  1774  unanimously  condemned  the 
practice  of  holding  slaves.  The  Convention  of  1787,  while  legis 
lating  for  the  continuance  of  slavery,  resolved  to  exclude  from 
the  constitution  the  word  "  slave,"  lest  it  should  be  thought  that 
the  American  nation  gave  any  sanction  to  "the  idea  that  there 
could  be  property  in  men."  Washington,  a  native  of  the  South 
and  a  slaveholder,  declared  it  to  be  among  his  first  wishes  to  see 
slavery  abolished  by  law,  and  in  his  will  provided  for  the  eman 
cipation  of  his  slaves.  Jefferson,  also  a  native  of  the  South  and 


*  I  am  speaking,  of  course,  of  the  reception  which  the  proposition  would  meet 
with  while  the  Slave  party  were  yet  triumphant.  What  it  might  be  induced  to 
accept  if  thoroughly  beaten  by  the  North,  is  another  question  which  it  is  not  neces 
sary  here  to  discuss. 

Since  these  observations  were  written,  the  news  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  project  of  eman 
cipation  has  arrived.  Tt  will  be  seen  that  the  condition  stated  in  the  last  sentence 
— the  subjugation  of  the  South — is  precisely  the  circumstance  which  gives  to  that 
scheme  the  least  chance  of  success.  Mr.  Lincoln  knew  too  well  the  men  with  whom 
he  had  to  deal  to  think  of  making  such  an  offer  till  he  was,  or  thought  himself,  in  a 
position  to  enforce  it. 


GROWTH  OF  THE  PRO- SLA  VERT  SENTIMENT.          89 

a  slaveholder,  framed  a  plan  of  abolition,  and  declared  that  in 
the  presence  of  slavery  "  he  trembled  for  his  country  when  he 
reflected  that  God  was  just;"  that  in  the  event  of  a  rising  of 
slaves,  il  the  Almighty  had  no  attribute  which  could  take  side 
with  slaveowners  in  such  a  contest."  The  other  leading  states 
men  of  that  time,  Franklin,  Madison,  Hamilton,  Patrick  Hen 
ry,  the  Randolphs,  Monroe,  whether  from  the  North  or  from 
the  South,  whether  agreeing  or  not  in  their  views  on  the  practi 
cal  mode  of  dealing  with  the  institution,  alike  concurred  in 
reprobating  at  least  the  principle  of  slavery. 

But  it  seems  impossible  that  a  whole  people  should  live 
permanently  in  contemplation  of  a  system  which  does  violence 
to  its  moral  instincts.  One  of  two  results  will  happen.  Either 
its  moral  instincts  will  lead  it  to  reform  the  institution  which 
offends  them,  or  those  instincts  will  be  perverted,  and  become 
authorities  for  what  in  their  unsophisticated  condition  they 
condemned.  The  latter  alternative  is  that  which  has  happened 
in  the  Southern  States.  Slavery  is  no  longer  regarded  there  as 
a  barbarous  institution,  to  be  palliated  with  whispering  humble 
ness  as  an  inheritance  from  a  ruder  age;  but  rather  as  a  sys 
tem  admirable  for  its  intrinsic  excellence,  worthy  to  be  upheld 
and  propagated,  the  last  and  completest  result  of  time.*  The 
right  of  the  white  man  to  hold  the  negro  in  permanent  thral 
dom,  to  compel  him  to  work  for  his  profit,  to  keep  him  in 
enforced  ignorance,  to  sell  him,  to  flog  him,  and  if  need  be,  to 
kill  him,  to  separate  him  at  pleasure  from  his  wife  and  child 
ren,  to  transport  him  for  no  crime  to  a  remote  region  where  he 
is  in  a  tew  years  worked  to  death — this  is  now  propounded  as 
a  grand  discovery  in  ethical  and  political  science,  made  for  the 
first  time  by  the  enlightened  leaders  of  the  Southern  Confede 
ration,  and  recommended  by  that  philanthropic  body  to  all 
civilized  nations  for  their  adoption.  This  Confederation,  which 
is  the  opprobrium  of  the  age,  puts  itself  forward  as  a  model  for 
its  imitation,  and  calmly  awaits  the  tardy  applause  of  mankind. 
"  The  ideas  entertained  at  the  time  of  the  formation  of  the  old 
CMn>titution,"  says  the  Vice-President  of  the  Southern  Confe 
deracy,  a  were  that  the  enslavement  of  the  African  race  was  in 
violation  of  the  laws  of  nature  ;  that  it  was  wrong  in  principle, 
socially,  morally,  and  politically.  Our  new  government  is 
founded  on  exactly  opposite  ideas  /  its  foundations  are  laid,  its 
cornt'r-st"ne  rests,  upon  the  great  truth  that  the  negro  is  not 

*  It  is  instructive  to  observe  the  gradation  by  wbich  this  advanced  point  has  been 
reached.  Thirty  years  ago  it  was  contended  "that  there  was  not  the  slightest 
moral  turpitude  in  holding  slaves  under  existing  circumstances  in  the  South,"— 
Qua.rter.-ly  Review,  Sept.  and  Dec.,  1832. 


90  SLA  VERY  A  FASHIONABLE  TASTE. 

equal  to  the  white  man  ;  that  slavery — subordination  to  the 
superior  race — is  his  natural  and  moral  condition.  This  OUT 
Government  is  the  first  in  the  history  frf  the  world  based  upon 
this  great  physical,  philosophical,  and  moral  truth.  It  is  upon 
this  our  social  fabric  is  firmly  planted,  and  I  cannot  permit  my 
self  to  doubt  the  ultimate  success  of  the  full  recognition  of  this 
principle  throughout  the  civilized  and  enlightened  world.  .  .  . 
This  stone  which  was  rejected  by  the  first  builders  '  is  become 
the  chief  stone  of  the  corner'  in  our  new  edifice."*  Opinion  in  the 
South  has  long  passed  beyond  the  stage  at  which  slavery  needs 
to  be  defended  by  argument.  The  subject  is  now  never  touch 
ed  but  in  a  strain  such  as  the  freedom  conquered  at  Marathon 
and  Platrea  inspired  in  the  orators  of  Athens.  It  is  "the 
beneficent  source  and  wholesome  foundation  of  our  civilization;" 
an  institution,  u  moral  and  civilizing,  useful  at  once  to  blacks 
and  whites."  "To  suppress  slavery  would  be  to  throw  back 
civilization  two  hundred  year.-."  "  It  is  not  a  moral  evil.  It 
is  the  Lord's  doing,  and  marvellous  in  our  eyes.  .  .  It  is  by 
divine  appointment." 

But  slavery  in  the  South  is  something  more  than  a  moral 
and  political  principle  :  it  has  become  a  fashionable  taste,  a 
social  passion.  Tiie  possession  of  a  slave  in  the  South  carries 
with  it  the  same  sort  of  prestige  as  the  possession  of  land  in  this 
country,  as  the  possession  of  a  horse  among  the  Arabs  :  it 
brings  the  owner  into  connexion  with  the  privileged  class  and 
forms  a  presumption  that  he  has  attained  a  certain  social  posi 
tion.  Slaves  have  thus  in  the  South  acquired  a  factitious 
\ialue,  and  are  coveted  with  an  eagerness  far  beyond  what  the 
intrinsic  utility  of  their  services  would  explain.  A  Chancellor 
of  South  Carolina  describes  slavery  as  in  accordance  with  "  the 
proudest  and  most  deeply  cherished  feelings  "  of  his  country 
men — <"  feelings,  tfrhieh  others,  if  they  will,  may  call  prejudices." 
A  governor  of  Kansas  declares  that  he  "loves  "  the  institution, 
and  that  he  votes  for  it  because  he  "  loves "  it.  Nor  are 
these  sentiments  confined  to  the  slaveholding  minority.  The 
all-important  circumstance  is  that  they  are  shared  equally  by 
the  whole  white  population.  Far  from  reprobating  a  system 
which  has  deprived  them  of  the  natural  means  of  rising  in  the 
scale  of  humanity,  they  fall  in  with  the  prevailing  modes  of 
thought,  and  are  warm  admirers,  and,  when  need  arises, 
effective  defenders,  of  an  institution  which  has  been  their  curse. 
To  be  the  owner  of  a  slave  is  the  chief  object  of  the  poor  white's 


*  Speech  of  Mr.  A.  H.  Stephens,  Vice- President  of  the  Southern  Confederacy, 
delivered  March,  1861. 


HOPELESSNESS  OF  THE  SLA  VE'S  POSITION.  91 

ambition  ;  "  quot  servos pascit  ?"  the  one  criterion  by  which  he 
weighs  the  worth  of  his  envied  superiors  in  the  social  scale. 

Such  has  been  the  course  of  opinion  on  the  subject  of  s'avery 
in  the  Southern  States.  The  progress  of  events,  far  from  con 
ducing  to  the  gradual  mitigation  and  ultimate  extinction  of  the 
system,  has  tended  distinctly  in  the  opposite  direction — to  the 
aggravation  of  its  worst  evils  and  the  consolidation  of  its 
strength.  The  extension  of  the  area  subject  to  the  Slave  Power 
and  the  increase  in  the  slave  population  have  augmented  at 
once  the  inducements  for  retaining  the  institution  and  the 
difficulty  of  getting  rid  of  it;  while  the  ideas  of  successive 
generations,  bred  up  in  its  presence  and  under  the  influence 
of  the  interests  to  which  it  has  given  birth,  have  provided  for  it 
in  the  minds  of  the  people  a  moral  support.  The  result  is,  that 
the  position  of  the  slave  in  the  Southern  States  at  the  present' 
time,  so  far  as  it  depends  upon  the  will  and  power  of  his  mas 
ters,  is  in  all  respects  more  hopeless  than  it  has  ever  been  in 
any  former  age,  or  in  any  other  quarter  of  the  world.  A  Fugi 
tive  Slave  law,  which  throws  into  shade  the  former  atrocities 
of  slavery,  has  been  enacted,  and  until  the  recent  disturbances 
was  strictly  enforced.  The  education  of  the  negro  is  more 
than  ever  rigorously  proscribed.  Emancipation  finds  in  the 
growth  of  fanatical  pro-slavery  opinions  obstacles  more  formida 
ble  even  than  in  the  laws.  Propositions  have  been  entertained 
by  the  legislatures  in  some  states  for  reducing  all  free  coloured 
persons  to  slavery  by  one  wholesale  enactment ;  in  others  these 
people  have  been  banished  from  the  state  under  pain  of  this 
fate.  Everything  in  the  laws,  in  the  customs,  in  the  education, 
of  the  people,  has  been  contrived  with  the  single  view  of  de 
grading  the  negro  to  the  level  of  the  brute,  and  blotting  out 
from  his  mind  the  hope  and  even  the  idea  of  freedom. 

The  thoroughness — the  absolute  disregard  of  all  consequences 
with  which  this  purpose  has  been  pursued,  is  but  little  under 
stood  in  this  country.  History  can  supply  no  instance  of  a 
despotism  more  complete  and  searching  than  that  which  for 
some  years  past  has  prevailed  in  the  Southern  States.  Since 
the  attempt  of  John  Brown  at  Harper's  Ferry,  its  oppression 
has  reached  a  height  which  can  only  be  adequately  described 
as  a  reign  of  terror.  It  is  long  since  freedom  of  discussion  on 
any  question  connected  with  slavery  would  have  been  tolerated. 
But  it  is  not  merely  freedom  of  discussion  which  is  now  pro 
hibited.  The  design  seems  to  have  been  formed  of  putting 
down  freedom  of  thought,  and  of  banishing  from  the  South 
every  trace  of  dissentient  opinion.  A  system  of  espionage  has 
been  organized.  The  mail  bags  have  in  many  states  been  freely 


92  TERRORISM. 

opened,  and  the  postmasters  of  petty  villages  have  exercised  a 
free  discretion  in  giving  or  withholding  the  documents  entrusted 
to  their  care.  In  the  more  southern  states  vigilance  commit 
tees  have  been  established  en  permanence.  Before  these  self- 
constituted  tribunals  persons  of  unblemished  reputation  and 
inoffensive  manners  have  been  summoned,  and,  on  a  few  days' 
notice,  for  no  other  offence  than  that  of  being  known  to  enter 
tain  sentiments  unfavourable  to  slavery,  have  been  banished 
from  the  state  where  they  resided  ;  and  this  in  direct  violation 
of  a  specific  provision  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.* 
Clergymen,  who  have  broken  no  law,  for  merely  discharging 
their  duties  according  to  their  consciences,  have  been  arrested, 
thrown  into  prison,  and  visited  with  ignominious  punishment. 
Travellers,  who  have  incautiously,  in  ignorance  of  the  intensity 
of  the  popular  feeling,  ventured  to  give  temperate  expression 
to  anti-slavery  opinions,  have  been  seized  by  the  mob,  tarred 
and  feathered,  ducked,  flogged,  and  in  some  instances  hanged. 
Nay,  so  sensitively  jealous  has  the  feeling  of  the  South  become, 
that  the  slightest  link  of  connexion  with  a  suspected  locality — 
to  have  resided  in  the  North,  to  have  sent  one's  children  to  a 
Northern  school — is  sufficient  to  secure  expulsion  from  a  slave 
state.  An  abolitionist  in  the  ethics  of  the  South  is  the  vilest  of 
all  human  beings,  and  every  one  is  an  abolitionist  who  does  not 
reside  in  a  slave  state  and  share  to  the  full  the  prevailing  pro- 
slavery  sentiment.f  Such  is  the  point  which  civilization  has 
reached  under  slave  institutions.  At  this  cost  the  system  is 
maintained.^: 


*  "  The  citizens  of  each  state  shall  be  entitled  to  all  the  privileges  and  immunities 
of  citizens  in  the  several  states." 

f  It  may  readily  be  conceived  that  Southern  intolerance  did  not  relax  as  the  great 
social  schism  approached  its  crisis.  M.  Cucheval-Clarigny  gives  the  following  vivid 
sketch  of  the  measures  by  which  unionist  sentiment  was  overborne  in  the  South : 
— "  Chaque  jour  on  voyait  arriver,  dans  les  etats  du  centre  ou  de  1'ouest,  des  gens 
qui  avaient  ete  denonces  comme  mal  pensans,  et  qui  avaient  regu,  par  lettre 
anonyme,  I'invitation  d'emigrer  dans  les  vingt-quatre  heures,  sous  peine  de  voir  leur 
maison  incendiee  et  de  recevoir  un  coup  de  couteau.  Les  journaux  de  la  Nouvelle- 
Orleans,  qui  combattaierit  la  separation,  furent  contraints  1'un  apres  1'autre  de  cesser 
leur  publication  ou  de  changer  completement  de  langage.  Dans  les  villes  un  peu 
importantes  dusud,  des  bandes  armees  parcouraient  les  rues,  precedees  d'un  drapeau 
avec  le  palmier,  et  des  menaces  de  mort  etaient  proferees  devant  les  maisons  dea 
gens  suspects  d'attachement  a  1'Union.  Quand  une  legislature  paraissait  hesiter 
devant  un  vote  belliqueux,  on  tenait  des  reunions  publiques  pour  gourmander  sa 
lenteur,  et  on  lui  adreAiiit  des  objurgations.  On  ne  parlait  de  rien  moins  en  effet 
dans  certains  etats  que  de  ly>e  voter  des  mesures  d'exception.  remprisonnement  ou 
1'exile  des  suspects,  et  la  confiscation  de  leurs  biens." — Annuaire  des  Deux,  Mondes, 
1860,  p.  617. 

\  The  Reign  of  Terror  in  ihe  South,  &c.  piissim ;  also  Reports  of  the  American  Anti 
Slavery  Society,  for  the  veais  1857-50. 


ITS  AGGRESSIVE  CHARACTER.  93 


CHAPTER  VI. 

EXTERNAL    POLICY    OF   SLAVE    SOCIETIES. 

IN  the  foregoing  chapters  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  analyze 
the  system  of  society  presented  in  the  Slave  States,  and  to 
ascertain  the  direction  in  which,  under  ordinary  circumstances, 
and  in  the  absence  of  intervention  from  without,  the  develop 
ment  of  such  a  system  proceeds ;  and  the  result  of  an  exa 
mination,  as  well  of  the  several  elements  of  which  the  whole 
society  is  composed  as  of  their  joint  action,  has  been  to  show 
that  it  is  essentially  retrograde  in  its  character,  containing 
within  it  no  germs  from  which  improvement  can  grow,  and  no 
forces  competent  to  counteract  those  which  press  it  downwards. 
In  the  remaining  portion  of  this  essay  I  shall  endeavour  to 
exhibit  the  working  of  this  system  in  the  politics  of  the  Union  ; 
and  as,  in  relation  to  the  people  who  compose  it,  the  social 
system  of  the  Slave  States  has  been  seen  to  be  retrograde,  so, 
in  relation  to  other  societies  with  which  it  may  come  into 
contact,  it  will  be  found  to  be  aggressive — to  be  constantly 
urged  by  exigencies,  which  it  cannot  control,  to  extend  its 
territory,  and  by  an  ambition  not  less  inevitable  to  augment 
its  power. 

The  aggressive  character  of  a  social  system  deriving  its 
strength  from  slavery — that  is  to  say  of  a  Slave  Power — pro 
ceeds  primarily  from  the  well-known  economic  fact,  already 
more  than  once  adverted  to — the  necessary  limitation  of  slave- 
culture  to  soils  of  more  than  average  richness,  combined  with 
its  tendency  to  exhaust  them.  It  results  from  this  thsit  societies 
based  upon  slavery  cannot,  like  those  founded  upon  free  indus 
trial  institutions,  take  root,  grow,  and  flourish  upon  a  limited 
area.  To  secure  their  vigour,  their  roots  must  be  always 
spreading.  A  constant  supply  of  fresh  soils  of  high  fertility 
becomes,  therefore,  an  indispensable  requisite  for  the  perma 
nent  industrial  success  of  such  societies.  This  is  a  fundamental 
principle  in  their  political  economy,  and  one  which,  we  shall 
find,  exercises  a  powerful  influence  on  the  course  of  their  gene 
ral  history.  As  the  principle  will  hereafter  be  frequently 
referred  to,  it  is  important  to  observe  that  it  is  one  about  which 
no  controversy  can  be  said  to  exist,  being  as  fully  recognized 
by  the  upholders  as  by  the  opponents  of  slavery.  u  There  is 
not  a  slaveholder,"  says  Judge  Warner  of  Georgia,  "  in  this 


94:  SLA  VER  T  MIGRA  TOR  Y. 

house  or  out  of  it,  but  who  knows  perfectly  well  that,  when 
ever  slavery  is  confined  within  certain  specified  limits,  its  future 
existence  is  doomed;  it  is  only  a  question  of  time  as  to  its  final 
destruction.  You  may  take  any  single  slaveholding  county  in 
the  Southern  States,  in  which  the  great  staples  of  cotton  and 
sugar  are  cultivated  to  any  extent,  and  confine  the  present 
slave  population  within  the  limits  of  that  county.  Such  is  the 
rapid  natural  increase  of  the  slaves,  and  the  rapid  exhaustion 
of  the  soil  in  the  cultivation  of  those  crops  (which  add  so  much 
to  the  commercial  wealth  of  the  country),  that  in  a  few  years 
it  would  he  impossible  to  support  them  within  the  limits  of 
such  county.  Both  master  and  slave  would  be  starved  out; 
and  what  would  be  the  practical  effect  in  any  one  county,  the 
same  result  would  happen  to  all  the  slaveholding  States.  Sla- 
verv  cannot  be  confined  within  certain  specified  limits  without 
producing  the  destruction  of  both  master  and  slave  ;  it  requires 
fresh  lands,  plenty  of  wood  and  water,  not  only  for  the  comfort 
and  happiness  of  the  slave,  but  for  the  benefit  of  the  owner."* 
It  is  further  important  to  observe  that  the  internal  organiza 
tion  of  slave  societies  adapts  them  in  a  peculiar  manner  for  a 
career  of  constant  expansion.  "In  free  communities  property 
becomes  fixed  in  edifices,  in  machinery,  and  in  improvements 
of  the  soil.  In  slave  communities  there  is  scarcely  any  pro 
perty  except  slaves,  and  they  are  easily  movable.  The  free 
man  embellishes  his  home  ;  the  slaveholder  finds  nothing  to 
bind  him  to  soils  which  he  has  exhausted.  Freedom  is  enter 
prising,  but  not  migratory  as  slavery  is.  It  is  not  in  the  nature 
of  slavery  to  become  attached  to  place.  It  is  nomadic.  The 
slaveholder  leaves  his  impoverished  fields  with  as  little  reluc 
tance  as  the  ancient  Scythian  abandoned  cropped  pastures  for 
fresh  ones,  and  slaves  are  moved  as  readily  as  flocks  and 

herds."t 

Slavery  thus  requires  for  its  success  a  constantly  expanding 
field.  It  is  also  to  be  noted  that  within  this  field  it  is  exclusive 
of  all  other  industrial  systems.  It  is  true,  indeed,  that  there 
exists  in  certain  districts  through  the  Slave  States  a  considera 
ble  free  population  engaged  in  regular  industry  ;  but  this  forms 
no  real  exception  to  the  essential  exclusiveness  of  slave  socie 
ties.  These  settlements  of  free  farmers  occur  only  where,  from 
some  cause,  slavery  has  disappeared  from  tracts  of  country 
large  enough  to  form  the  abode  of  distinct  societies ;  as  in 
Western  Virginia,  where  the  exhaustion  of  the  soil,  under  a 
long  continued  cultivation  by  slaves,  compelled  at  one  time  an 

*  Progress  of  Slavery,  p.  227.  f  Ibid.,  p.  8. 


THE  RACE  OF  COLONIZATION.  95 

extensive  emigration  of  planters ;  or  along  the  slopes  of  the 
Allegbanies,  where  the  land  is  better  suited  to  cereal  crops  than 
to  cotton  or  tobacco ;  or,  again,  in  Texas,  where  the  available 
slave  force  has  not  been  sufficient  to  enable  planters  to  appro 
priate  the  vast  regions  suddenly  placed  at  their  disposal.  In 
these  cases,  no  doubt,  colonies  of  free  peasants  are  to  be  found 
in  the  midst  of  the  Slave  States  ;  but  there  is  here  no  real 
intermixture  of  the  two  forms  of  society.  The  free  settlements 
remain  in  the  Slave  States  as  distinct  communities* — oases  of 
freedom  in  the  vast  desert  of  slavery — without  bond  of  interest 
or  sympathy  to  connect  them  with  the  surrounding  population. 
Slave  society  is  thus  essentially  exclusive  of  all  other  forms  of 
social  life. •]•  JSTow  this  characteristic  of  it  is  as  well  understood 
by  the  free  population  of  the  Northern  States,  as  is  the  neces 
sity  to  their  system  of  a  constantly  expanding  area  by  the 
planters  of  the  South  ;  and  hence  it  has  happened  that,  when 
ever  free  and  slave  societies  have  come  into  contact  on  the 
same  field,  a  mutual  antagonism  has  sprung  up  between  them. 
Each  has  endeavoured  to  outstrip  the  other  in  the  career  of 
colonization,  and,  by  first  occupying  the  ground,  to  keep  the 
field  open  for  its  future  expansion  against  the  encroachments 
of  its  rival.  "It  has  thus,"  says  Mr.  Weston,  "  become  a  race 
whether  the  negro  from  Texas  and  Arkansas,  or  the  wiiite 
labourer  from  Kansas  and  the  free  West,  shall  first  reach  New 
Mexico  arid  the  Gulf  of  California." 

But  it  is  less  in  the  economic,  than  in  the  moral  and  social, 
attributes  of  slave  societies  that  we  must  look  for  the  motive 
principle  of  their  aggressive  ambition.  That  which  the  neces 
sity  for  fresh  soils  is  to  the  political  economy  of  such  commu 
nities,  a  lust  of  power  is  to  their  morality.  The  slaveholder 
lives  from  infancy  in  an  atmosphere  of  despotism.  He  sees 
around  him  none  but  abject  creatures,  who,  under  fearful  penal 
ties  to  be  inflicted  by  himself,  are  bound  to  do  his  slightest,  his 
most  unreasonable,  bidding.  "The  commerce  between  master 
and  slave,"  says  a  slaveowner,  "  is  a*  perpetual  exercise  of  the 
most  boisterous  passions — the  most  unremitting  despotism  on 
the  one  hand,  and  degrading  submission  on  the  other.  Our 
children  see  this,  and  learn  to  imitate  it.  ...  The  parent 

*  See  Olmsted's  account  of  the  German  settlement  in  Texas. — A  Journey  through 
Texas,  pp.  143-146,  176-178. 

f  This  is  not  only  instinctively  felt  by  the  Southerns,  but  maintained  in  theory. 
The  following  passage  from  the  Richmond  Inquirer  is  sufficiently  explicit :  "Two 
opposite  and  conflicting  forms  of  society  cannot,  among  civilized  men,  co-exist  and 
endure.  The  one  must  give  way  and  cease  to  exist ;  the  other  become  universal. 
If  free  society  be  unnatural,  immoral,  unchristian,  it  must  fall,  and  give  way  to 
slave  society,  a  social  system  old  as  the  world,  universal  as  man." 


96  TENDENCY  TO  FOSTER  AMBITION. 

storms,  the  child  looks  on,  catches  the  lineaments  of  wrath, 
puts  on  the  same  airs  in  the  circle  of  smaller  slaves,  gives  a 
loose  to  the  worst  passions,  and  thus  nursed,  educated,  and 
daily  exercised  in  tyranny,  cannot  but  be  stamped  with  its 
odious  peculiarities."*  "The  first  notion,"  says  De  Tocque- 
ville,  "  which  the  citizen  of  the  Southern  States  acquires  in 
life,  is  that  he  is  born  to  command,  and  the  first  habit  which 
he  contracts  is  that  of  being  obeyed  without  resistance."  The 
despot  mood  is  thus  early  impressed  on  the  heart  of  the  slave 
holder  ;  and  it  bears  fruit  in  his  manners  and  life.  "  The  exist 
ence  of  a  dominant  class  necessarily  leads  to  violence.  Trained 
up  from  youth  to  the  unrestrained  exercise  of  will,  the  superior 
race  or  class  naturally  becomes  despotic,  overbearing,  and  im 
patient.  In  their  intercourse  with  their  inferiors  this  leads  to 
unresisted  oppression  ;  but  with  their  equals,  armed  with  simi 
lar  power  and  fired  by  the  same  passions,  it  breaks  out  into 
fierce  strife.  ...  In  this  country  the  relation  of  master 
and  slave  produces  the  same  effect  on  the  character  of  the 
dominant  class  as  was  formerly  produced  in  Europe  by  that  of 
lord  and  serf.  There  is  the  same  imperious  will,  the  same  im 
patience  of  restraint,  the  same  proneness  to  anger  and  ferocious 
strife.  The  passions  which  are  developed  in  the  intercourse 
with  inferiors  show  themselves,  though  in  a  different  form,  in 
the  intercourse  with  equals.  Thus,  by  an  inevitable  retribution, 
wrong  is  made  self-chastising,  and  the  hand  of  the  violent  man 
is  turned  against  himself. 

"  Duelling  is  not  the  only  form  of  this  national  proneness  to 
acts  of  violence ;  rather,  it  is  the  modified  form  which  it 
assumes  among  fair  and  honourable  men,  who,  even  in  their 
anger,  disdain  to  take  advantage  of  an  adversary,  and  who 
have  at  least  sufficient  self-command  to  give  a  semblance  of 
reason  to  their  passion.  There  are  others,  whose  hasty  impulses 
disdain  even  this  slight  self-restraint,  who  carry  with  them 
habitually  the  means  of  deadly  injury,  and  use  them  on  the 
slightest  provocation."  ...  "  The  custom  of  carrying 
arms  is  at  once  a  proof  of  proneness  to  violence,  and  a  provo 
cation  to  it.  This  habit,  I  am  informed,  prevails  very  exten 
sively  in  the  South.  When  coming  down  the  Mississippi,  a 

Colonel  B ,  to  whom  I  had  been  introduced,  pointing  to 

a  crowd  of  men  of  all  ranks  clustered  round  the  cabin  stove, 
said  :  i  Now,  there  is  probably  not  a  man  in  all  that  crowd  who 
is  not  armed  ;  I  myself  have  a  pistol  in  my  state-room.'  "f 

Such  are  the  private  influences  by  which  the  slaveholder  is 

*  Jefferson's  Notes  on  Virginia,  p.  39. 

f  Stirling's  Letters  from  the  Slave  States,  pp.  270,  213. 


SLA  VER  Y  ITS  SOLE  RESO  URGE.  97 

moulded  to  an  intense  craving  for  power.  And  what  scope  do 
the  institutions  of  the  South  provide  for  the  satisfaction,  on  a 
large  theatre,  of  the  passion  which  they  generate  ?  In  free 
societies  the  paths  to  eminence  are  various.  Successful  tnde, 
the  professions,  science  and  literature,  social  reform,  philan 
thropy,  furnish  employment  for  the  redundant  activity  of  the 
people,  and  open  so  man}'  avenues  to  distinction.  But  for 
slaveholders  these  means  of  advancement  do  not  exist.  Com 
merce  and  manufactures  are  excluded  by  the  necessities  of  the 
case.  The  professions,  which  are  the  result  of  much  subdivision 
of  employment  where  population  is  rich  and  dense,  can  have 
no  place  in  a  poor  and  thinly  peopled  country.  Science  and 
literature  are  left  without  the  principal  inducements  for  their 
cultivation,  where  there  is  no  field  for  their  most  important 
practical  applications.  Social  reform  and  philanthropy  would 
be  out  of  place  in  a  country  where  human  chattels  are  the 
principal  property.  Practically,  but  one  career  lies  open  to 
the  Southerner  desirous  of  advancement — agriculture  carried 
on  by  slaves.  To  this,  therefore,  he  turns.  In  the  management 
of  his  plantation,  in  the  breeding,  buying,  and  selling  of  slaves, 
his  life  is  passed.  Amid  the  moral  atmosphere  which  this 
mode  of  life  engenders  his  ideas  and  tastes  are  formed.  '  He- 
lias  no  notion  of  ease,  independence,  happiness,  where  slavery 
is  not  found.  Is  it  strange,  then,  that  his  ambition  should  con 
nect  itself  with  the  institution  around  which  are  entwined  his 
domestic  associations,  which  is  identified  with  all  his  plans  in 
life,  and  which  offers  him  the  sole  chance  of  emerging  from 
obscurity  ? 

But  the  aspirations  of  the  slaveholder  are  not  confined  within 
the  limits  of  his  own  community.  He  is  also  a  citizen  of  the 
United  States.  In  the  former  he  naturally  and  easily  takes  the 
leading  place ;  but,  as  a  member  of  the  larger  society  in  which 
he  is  called  upon  to  act  in  combination  with  men  who  have 
been  brought  up  under  free  institutions,  the  position  which  he 
is  destined  to  fill  is  not  so  clearly  indicated.  It  is  plain,  how 
ever,  that  he  cannot  become  blended  in  the  general  mass  of  the 
population  of  the  Union.  His  character,  habits,  and  aims  are 
not  those  of  the  Northern  people,  nor  are  theirs  his.  The 
Northerner  is  a  merchant,  a  manufacturer,  a  lawyer,  a  literary 
man,  an  artisan,  a  shopkeeper,  a  schoolmaster^a  peasant  farmer; 
he  is  engaged  in  commercial  speculation,  or  in  promoting  social 
or  political  reform;  perhaps  he  is  a  philanthropist,  and  includes 
slavery-abolition  in  his  programme.  Between  such  men  and 
the  slaveholder  of  the  South  there  is  no  common  basis  for 
political  action.  There  are  no  objects  in  promoting  which  he 

7 


98  POSITION  OF  THE  SOUTH  IN  THE  UNION 

can  combine  with  them  in  good  faith  and  upon  public  grounds. 
There  lies  before  him,  therefore,  but  one  alternative :  he  must 
stand  by  his  fellows,  and  become  powerful  as  the  a*sertor  and 
propagandist  of  shivery  ;  or  failing  this,  he  must  submit  to  be 
of  no  account  in  the  politics  of  the  Union.  Here  then  again 
the  slaveholder  is  thrown  back  upon  his  peculiar  system  as  the 
sole  means  of  satisfying  the  master  passion  of  his  life.  In  the 
society  of  the  Union,  no  less  than  in  that  of  the  State,  he  finds 
that  his  single  path  to  power  lies  through  the  maintenance  and 
extension  of  this  institution.  Accordingly,  to  uphold  it,  to 
strengthen  it,  to  provide  for  its  future  growth  and  indefinite 
expansion,  becomes  the  dream  of  his  life — the  one  great  object 
of  his  existence.  But  this  is  not  all ;  this  same  institution, 
which  is  the  beginning  and  end  of  the  slaveholder's  being, 
places  between  him  and  the  citizens  of  free  societies  a  broad 
and  impassable  gulf.  The  system  which  is  the  foundation  of 
his  present  existence  and  future  hopes  is  by  them  denounced 
as  sinful  and  inhuman ;  and  he  is  himself  held  up  to  the  re 
probation  of  mankind.  The  tongues  and  hands  of  all  freemen 
are  instinctively  raised  against  him.  A  consciousness  is  thus 
awakened  in  the  minds  of  the  community  of  slaveholders  that 
they  are  a  proscribed  cla«s,  that  their  position  is  one  of  anta 
gonism  to  the  whole  civilized  world  ;  and  the  feeling  binds 
them  together  in  the  fastest  concord.  Their  pride  is  aroused; 
and  all  the  energy  of  their  nature  is  exerted  to  make  good  their 
position  against  those  who  would  assail  it.  In  this  manner  the 
instinct  of  self-defence  and  the  sentiment  of  pride  come  to  aid 
the  passion  of  ambition,  and  all  tend  to  fix  in  the  minds  of 
slaveholders  the  resolution  to  maintain  at  all  hazards  the  key 
stone  of  their  social  order.  To  establish  their  scheme  of  society 
©n  such  broad  and  firm  foundations  that  they  may  set  at  de 
fiance  the  public  opinion  of  free  nations,  and,  in  the  last  resort, 
resist  the  combined  efforts  of  their  physical  power,  becomes  at 
length  the  settled  purpose  and  clearly  conceived  design  of  the 
whole  body.  To  this  they  devote  themselves  with  the  zeal  of 
fanatics,  with  the  persistency  and  secrecy  of  conspirators. 

The  position  of  slaveholders  thus  naturally  fosters  the  pas 
sion  of  ambition,  and  that  passion  irfevitably  coanects  itself 
with  the  maintenance  and  extension  of  slavery.  Whether  this 
ambition  would  find  means  to  assert  itself  in  the  politics  of  the 
United  States  might  at  one  time  have  seemed  more  than  doubt 
ful.  From  the  very  origin  of  the  Republic  there  were  causes 
in  operation  which  threatened,  if  not  vigorously  encountered, 
TO  exclude  the  South  from  that  influence  which  it  aspired  to 
attain.  The  institutions  of  the  Union  are  based,  in  a  large 


NATURALLY  INFERIOR  TO  THAT  OF  THE  NORTH.     99 

degree,  on  the  principle  of  representation  in  proportion  to  num 
bers.  But,  as  we  saw  on  a  former  occasion,  the  social  system 
of  the  Southern  States  is  ill  calculated  to  encourage  the  giowth 
of  population,  while  the  institutions  of  the  North  peculiarly 
favour  it.  On  the  formation  of  the  Federal  Union  the  North 
and  South  started  in  this  respect  upon  nearly  equal  terms;* 
and  for  a  while — so  long  as  slave  trading  with  Africa  was  per 
mitted — this  equality  was  approximately  maintained.  But.  in 
180s  the  African  slave  trade  was  abolished  ;  and  the  principal 
external  source  on  which  the  South  relied  for  recruiting  its 
population  was  thus  cut  off.  On  the  other  hand,  free  emigra 
tion  from  Europe  continued  to  pour  into  the  Northern  States  in 
a  constantly  increasing  stream ;  while  at  the  same  time  the 
natural  increase  of  the  Northern  people,  under  the  stimulus 
given  to  early  marriages  by  the  great  industrial  prosperity  of 
the  country,  was  rapid  beyond  precedent.  From  the  influence 
of  these  causes,  the  original  equality  in  numbers  between  North 
and  South  was  soon  converted  into  a  decided  preponderance  of 
the  North  ;  and  the  natural  course  of  events  tended  constantly 
to  increase  the  disproportion. 

This  state  of  things,  it  was  obvious,  threatened  ultimately 
the  political  extinction  of  the  South,  incapable  as  it  was  of 
taking  part  in  politics  except  as  a  distinct  interest.  At  iirst 
view,  indeed,  it  might  seem  as  if  this  consummation  was  not 
merely  ultimately  inevitable,  but  imminent.  In  point  of  fact, 
however,  the  South,  far  from  being  reduced  to  political  insigni 
ficance,  has,  throughout  the  whole  period  that  has  elapsed 
since  the  foundation  of  the  government,  maintained  paramount 
sway  in  the  councils  of  the  Union. 

This  result,  so  contrary  to  what  one  might  at  first  sight  have 
anticipated,  it  is  the  fashion  to  attribute  to  superior  capacity 
for  politics  among  the  Southern  people  ;  and  the  theory  certainly 
receives  some  countenance  from  the  fact,  that  of  the  illustrious 
men  who  founded  the  republic  some  of  the  most  eminent  were 
furnished  by  the  South.  It  is,  however,  quite  unnecessary  to 
resort  to  so  improbable  an  hypothesis,  as  that  political  capa 
city  is  best  nourished  by  institutions  which  tend  to  barbarize 
the  whole  life,  in  order  to  understand  the  part  taken  by  the 
South  in  the  politics  of  the  Union.  -The  sufficient  explanation 


*  In  1790  the  numbers  were  respectively  as  follows: — 

Free  States.  Slave  States. 

Whites 1,900,976  Whites 1,271,488 

Free  Blacks      .     .     .         27,102            Free  Blacks      .     .    .         32,354 
Slaves 40,364  Slaves 657,533 

Total 1,968,452  Total 1,961,375 


100  THE  THREE  FIFTHS  VOTE. 

is  to  be  found  in  two  circumstances — in  the  nature  of  the  Fede 
ral  Constitution,  regarded  in  connexion  with  the  singleness 
of  aim  and  steadiness  of  purpose,  which  naturally  characterize 
men  whose  interests  and  ideas  are  confined  within  the  narrow 
range  permitted  by  slave  institutions. 

The  Federal  Constitution,  as  is  well  known,  was  a  compro 
mise  between  two  principles — the  democratic  principle  of 
representation  in  proportion  to  numbers,  and  the  federal  princi 
ple  of  representation  according  to  states.  In  the  Lower  House 
of  Congress — the  House  of  Representatives — the  former  princi 
ple  prevailed  ;  the  several  states  of  the  Union  sending  members 
to  this  assembly  in  proportion  to  the  relative  numbers  of  their 
population.  In  the  Senate — the  Upper  House, — on  the  oilier 
hand,  representation  took  place  according  to  states — each  state, 
without  regard  to  extent  or  population,  being  there  represented 
by  the  same  number  of  senators.  In  the  election  of  the  Presi 
dent  these  two  principles  were  combined,  and  the  voting  power 
of  the  several  states  was  determined  by  adding  to  the  number 
of  their  representatives  in  the  Lower  House  the  number  of  their 
representatives  in  the  Senate — that  is  to  say,  by  the  proportion 
of  members  which  each  state  respectively  sent  to  both  Houses. 
Such  was  the  general  character  of  the  scheme."" 

In  the  arrangement,  as  thus  stated,  there  would  seem  to  be 
nothing  which  was  not  calculated  to  give  to  numbers,  wealth, 
and  intelligancej  their  due  share  in  the  government  of  the  c>>un- 
try.  But  in  applying  to  the  South  the  principles  just  described,  a 
provision  was  introduced  which  had  the  effect  of  very  materially 
altering,  as  regards  that  portion  of  the  Union,  the  popular  charac 
ter  of  the  Constitution.  This  was  the  clause  enacting  what  isknown 
as.  the  three-fifths  vote.  The  House  of  Representatives  professed 
to  bs  based  on  the  principle  of  representation  in  proportion  to 
population  ;  but,  by  virtue  of  this  clause,  in  reckoning  popula 
tion  slaves  were  allowed  to  count  in  the  proportion  of  live  slaves 
to  three  free  persons,  ^ow,  when  we  remember  that  the  slaves 
of  the  South  number  four  millions  in  a  population  of  which  the 
total  is  under  ten  millions,  it  is  not  difficult  to  perceive  what 
must  be  the  effect  of  such  an  arrangement  upon  tho  balance  of 

*  The  means  by  which  it  lias  been  sought  to  preserve  the  balance  between  these 
two  principles  of  the  Constitution  are  thus  briery  and  comprehensively  stated  in  the 
Federalist: — "The  Constitution  is,  in  strictness,  neither  a  national  nor  a  federal 
Constitution,  but  a  composition  of  both.  In  its  foundation  it  is  federal,  not  national; 
in  the  sources  from  which  the  ordinary  powers  of  the  government  are  drawn  it  is 
partly  federal  and  partly  national ;  in  the  operation  of  these  powers  it  is  national, 
not  federal ;  in  the  extent  of  them  again  it  is  federal,  not  national ;  and,  finally,  in 
the  authoritative  mode  of  introducing  amendments,  it  is  neither  wholly  federal 
nor  wholly  national." — Story  on  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  vol.  i.,  p.  199. 


SUPERIOR  C'APACITT  FOR  COMBINED  ACTION.       101 

forces  under  the  Constitution.  In  the  Presidential  election  of 
18")6,  the  slave  representation  was  nearly  equal  to  one-third  of 
the  whole  Southern  representation;  from  which  it  appears  that 
the  influence  of  the  South  in  the  general  representation  of  the 
Union  was,  in  virtue  of  the  three-fifths  vote,  nearly  one-half 
greater  than  it  would  have  been  had  the  popular  principle  of 
the  Constitution  been  fairly  carried  out.  But  the  influence  of 
the  South,  as  we  formerly  saw,  merely  means  the  influence  of 
a  fevv  hundred  thousand  slaveholders ;  the  whole  political  power 
of  the  Slave  States  being  in  practice  monopolized  by  this  body. 
The  case,  therefore,  stands  thus  :  under  the  local  institutions  of 
the  Slave  States,  the  slaveholding  interest — a  mere  fraction  in 
the  whole  population — predominates  in  the  South  ;  while,  under 
this  provision  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  the  South  acquires 
an  influence  in  the  Union  by  one-half  greater  than  legitimately 
belongs  to  it.  It  is  true  this  would  not  enable  the  Southern 
States,  while  their  aggregate  population  was  inferior  to  that  of 
the  Northern,  to  command  a  majority  in  the  Lower  House  by 
means  of  their  own  members.  But  we  must  remember  that 
the  South  is  a  homogeneous  body,  having  but  one  interest  to 
promote  and  one  policy  to  pursue  ;  while  the  interests  and  aims 
of  the  North  are  various,  and  its  councils  consequently  divided. 
"The  selfish,  single-purposed  party,"  says  Mr.  Senior,*  "  to 
which  general  politics  are  indifferent,  which  is  ready  to  ally 
itself  to  Free-traders  or  to  Protectionists,  to  Reformers  or  to 
Anti-reformers,  to  Puseyites  or  to  Dissenters,  becomes  power 
ful  by  becoming  unscrupulous.  If  Ireland  had  been  an  inde 
pendent  country,  separated  from  England,  the  Ultra-Catholic 
party,  whose  only  object  is  the  domination  of  the  clergy  and  of 
the  Pope,  would  have  ruled  her.  This  is  the  source  of  the  in 
fluence  of  a  similar  party  in  France.  The  Clerical,  or  Jesuit, 
or  Popish,  or  Ultramontane  faction — whatever  name  we  give 
to  it — has  almost  always  obtained  its  selfish  objects,  because 
those  objects  are  all  that  it  cares  for.  It  supported  the  Resto 
ration,  its  Priests  blessed  the  insurgents  of  February,  1848,  and 
it  now  worships  Louis  Napoleon.  The  only  condition  which  it 
makes  is  ecclesiastical  and  Popish  supremacy,  and  that  condi 
tion  the  governor  for  the  time  being  of  France  usually  accepts. 
u  Such  a  party  is  the  Southern  party  in  the  United  States." 
Its  single  aim  has  been  the  consolidation  and  extension  of 
slavery  ;  and  to  the  accomplishment  of  this  end  it  has  always 
been  ready  to  sacrifice  all  other  interests  in  the  country,  and,  if 
necessary,  the  integrity  of  the  Union  itself.  We  may  see,  then, 
in  what  consists  the  vaunted  aptitude  for  politics  exhibited  by 

*  Slavery  in  the  United  States,  pp.  16,  17. 


102  DEMOCRATIC  ALLIANCE:  ITS  BASIS. 

Southern  men  :  it  lies  simply  in  the  intense  selfishness  and  utter 
absence  of  scruple  with  which  they  have  persistently  pushed 
their  object.  They  have  acted  steadily  together — a  course  for 
which  no  political  virtue  was  necessary  where  there  was  but  a 
single  interest  to  promote,  and  that  interest  their  own.  They 
have  contrived,  by  an  unscrupulous  use  of  an  immense  patron 
age,  to  detach  from  the  array  of  their  opponents  a  section  suffi 
ciently  large  to  turn  the  scale  of  divisions  in  their  favour: — in 
other  words,  they  have  been  successful  practitioners  in  the  art 
of  political  jobbery.  Lastly,  they  have  worked  on  the  appre 
hensions  and  the  patriotism  of  the  country  at  large  by  the  con 
stantly  repeated  threat  which  they  have  now  proved  themselves 
capable  of  putting  in  force — of  dissolving  the  Union.* 

The  actual  inferiority  in  population  of  the  Southern  to  the 
Northern  States,  even  under  the  peculiar  advantage  conferred 
by  the  three-fifths  clause,  rendered  it  necessary  that  the  slave 
holders  should  procure  an  ally  among  the  northern  people  ;  and 
this  indispensable  ally  they  found  in  the  Democratic  party.  It 
has  been  frequently  remarked  upon  with  surprise  that,  in  seek 
ing  a  political  connexion,  the  South — whose  social  and  political 
system  is  intensely  aristocratic — should  have  attached  itself  to 
that  party  in  the  Union  in  which  the  democratic  principle  has 
been  carried  to  the  greatest  extreme.  But  the  explanation  is 
to  be  found  in  the  circumstances  of  the  case.  The  peculiarity 
of  the  industrial  and  social  economy  of  the  Southern  States  led 
them  from  the  first  to  lean  to  the  doctrine  of  state  rights,  as 
opposed  to  the  pretensions  of  the  central  government;  and  he 
doctrine  of  state  rights  is  a  democratic  doctrine.  On  this  fun 
damental  point,  therefore,  the  principles  of  the  Southern 
oligarchy  and  those  of  the  Northern  democracy  were  the  same. 
But  the  alliance  was  not  destitute  of  the  cement  of  interest  and 
feeling.  The  Democratic  party  had  its  principal  seats  in  the 
great  towns  along  the  Northern  seaboard  ;  and  between  the 
capitalists  of  these  towns  and  the  planters  of  the  Sourh  the 
commercial  connexion  had  always  been  close.  Capital  is  much 

*  "  Fignrez-vous  sur  un  vaisseau  un  homme  debout  pres  de  la  sainte-barbe,  avec- 
un  meche  allumee ;  il  est  seul,  mais  on  lui  obeit,  car,  a  la  premiere  desobeissance,  il 
se  fera  sauter  avec  tout  1'equipage.  Voila  precisement  ce  qui  se  passait  en  Ame- 
rique  depuis  qu'elle  allait  a  la  derive.  La  manoeuvre  etait  commandee  par  1'homme 
qui  tenait  la  rneche.  '  A  la  premiere  desobeissance,  nous  nous  quittons.'  Tel  a 
ete  de  tout  temps  le  langage  des  Etats  du  Sud.  On  les  savait  capables  de  tenir  pa 
role  :  aussi  n'y  avait-il  plus  qu'un  argument  en  Amerique,  la  scission  '  Revoquez 
le  compromis,  sinon  la  scission ;  modifiez  la  legislation  des  Etats  libres,  sinon  la 
scission  ;  courez  avec  nous  les  aventures,  et  entreprenez  des  eonquetes  pour  1'escla- 
vage,  sinon  la  scission  ;  enfin,  et  par  dessus  tout,  ne  vous  permeftez  jamais  d'elire  un 
president  qui  ne  soit  pas  notre  candidat,  sinon  la  scission. '  " — Un,  Grand  Peupk  qui 
se  releve,  p.  37. 


THE  TERMS  OF  THE  BARGAIN.  103 

needed  under  a  slave  system,  and  is  at  the  same  time  scarce. 
In  the  Northern  cities  it  was  abundant.  To  the  capitalists  of 
the  Northern  cities,  therefore,  the  planters  in  need  of  funds  lor 
carrying  on  their  industry  had  recourse;  and  a  large  amount 
of  democratic  capital  came  thus  to  be  invested  on  the  security 
of  slave  property.  A  community  of  interest  was  in  this  way 
established.  But  there  was  also  a  community  of  sentiment;  for 
the  Northern  cities  had  formerly  been  the  great  emporia  of  the 
African  slave  trade,  and  had  never  wholly  abandoned  the  ne 
farious  traffic;  and  the  tone  of  mind  engendered  by  constant 
familiarity  with  slavery  in  its  worst  form  naturally  predisposed 
them  to  an  alliance  with  slaveholders.  Widely  sundered,  there 
fore,  as  were  the  Southern  oligarchy  and  the  Democratic  party 
of  the  North  in  general  political  principle,  there  was  enough 
in  common  between  them  to  form  the  basis  of  a  selfish  bargain. 

o 

A  bargain,  accordingly,  was  struck,  of  which  the  consideration 
on  the  one  side  was  the  command  of  the  Federal  government 
for  the  extension  of  slavery,  and,  on  the  other,  a  share  in  the 
patronage  of  the  Union.  On  these  terms  a  coalition  between 
these  two  parties,  so  opposed  in  their  general  tendencies,  lias, 
almost  from  the  foundation  of  the  republic,  been  steadily  main 
tained  ;  and  in  this  waj  the  South — vastly  inferior  though  it 
has  been  to  irs  competitor  in  wealth,  population,  and  intelli 
gence — in  all  the  conditions  to  which  political  power  attaches 
in  well-ordered  states—  has,  nevertheless,  contrived  to  exercise 
a  loading  influence  upon  the  policy  of  the  Union. 

These  considerations  will  suffice-  to  explain  how  the  South 
has  been  enabled,  even  when  in  a  minority,  to  engage  with 
success  the  representatives  of  the  North.  In  the  Lower  House 
of  Congress  it  has  been  always  of  necessity  in  this  position; 
representation  being  herein  proportion  to  population,  in  which, 
even  including  slaves,  the  South  is  inferior  to  its  rival.  But  in 
the  Upper  House — the  House  which  under  the  Constitution 
enjoys  the  most  important  prerogatives  and  the  highest  influence 
— the  South  has  found  itself  at  less  disadvantage.  In  the  Senate, 

c5 

as  has  been  already  stated,  representation  takes  place  according 
to  states;  each  state  returning  two  members  without  regard  either 
to  the  number  of  its  inhabitants  or  to  the  extent  of  its  territory.. 
To  maintain  itself,  therefore,  on  an  equal  footing  with  the  North 
in  this  assembly,  the  South  has  only  need  to  keep  the  number 
of  slave  states  on  an  equality  with  that  of  the  free  ;  and  this, 
did  not  seem  to  be  be}7ond  its  power.  For,  the  tendency  of 
slavery  being  to  disperse  population,  a  given  number  of  people- 
under  a  slave  reyime  would  naturally  cover  a  larger  space  of 
country,  and  consequently  would  afford  the  materials  for  the; 


104        TEE  POLITICAL  MOTIVE  MAINLY  OPERATIVE. 

creation  of  a  greater  number  of  states,  than  the  same  number 
under  a  regime  of  freedom.  What,  therefore,  the  South  required 
to  secure  its  predominance  in  the  Senate,  was  a  territory  large 
enough  for  the  creation  of  new  slave  states  as  fast  as  the  exi 
gencies  of  its  politics  might  demand  them.  To  keep  open  the 
territory  of  the  Union  for  this  purpose  has,  in  consequence, 
always  been  a  capital  object  in  the  politics  of  the  South  ;  and 
in  this  way  a  political  has  been  added  to  the  economic  motive 
for  extended  territory.  Two  forces  have  thus  been  constantly 
urging  on  the  Slave  Power  to  territorial  aggrandizement — the 
need  for  fresh  soils,  and  the  need  for  slave  states.  Of  these  the 
former — that  which  proceeds  from  its  industrial  requirements — 
is  at  once  the  most  fundamental  and  the  most  imperative ;  but 
it  has  not  been  that  which,  in  the  actual  history  of  the  United 
States,  has  been  most  frequently  called  into  play.  In  point  of 
fact,  the  political  motive  has  in  a  great  measure  superseded  the 
economic.  The  desire  to  obtain  fresh  territory  for  the  creation 
of  slave  states,  with  a  view  to  influence  in  the  Senate,  has 
carried  the  South  in  its  career  of  aggression  far  beyond  the 
range  which  its  mere  industrial  necessities  would  have  pre 
scribed.  Accordingly,  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century — ever 
since  the  annexation  of  Texas — the  territory  at  the  disposal  of 
the  South  has  been  very  much  greater  than  its  available  slave 
force  has  been  able  to  cultivate;  and  iis  most  urgent  need  has 
now  become,  not  more  virgin  soils  on  which  to  employ  its 
slaves,  but  more  slaves  for  the  cultivation  of  its  virgin  soils. 
The  important  bearing  of  'this  change  on  the  viewrs  of  the 
Slave  Power  will  hereafter  be  pointed  out :  for  the  present,  it 
is  sufficient  to  call  attention  to  the  fact. 

A  principle  of  aggressive  activity,  in  addition  to  that  which 
is  involved  in  the  industrial  necessities  of  slavery,  has  thus  been 
called  into  operation  by  the  conditions  under  which  the  Slave 
Power  is  placed  in  the  Senate.  But  we  should  here  be  careful 
not  to  overrate  the  influence  exercised  on  that  Power  by  its 
position  in  the  Federal  Union.  It  would,  I  conceive,  be  an 
entire  mistake  to  suppose  that  this  desire  for  extended  territory, 
which,  under  actual  circumstances,  has  shown  itself  in  the 
creation  of  slave  states  with  a  view  to  influence  in  the  Senate, 
is  in  any  such  sense  the  fruit  of  the  position  of  the  South  in  the 
Federal  Union  as  that  we  should  be  justified  in  concluding 
that,  in  the  event  of  the  severance  of  the  Union,  the  South 
would  cease  to  desire  an  extension  of  its  territory  on  political 
grounds.  Such  a  view  would,  in  my  opinion,  imply  an  entire 
misconception  of  the  real  nature  of  the  forces  which  have  been 
at  work.  The  lust  of  dominion,  which  is  the  ruling  passion  of 


TRUE  SOURCE  OF  THIS  MOTIVE.  105 

the  Slave  Power,  is  not  accidental  but  inherent — has  its  source, 
not  in  the  constitution  of  the  Senate,  but  in  the  fundamental 
institution  of  the  Slave  States  ;  and  the  lust  of  dominion,  exist 
ing  in  an  embodied  form  in  a  new  continent,  cannot  but  find 
its  issue  in  territorial  aggrandizement.  This  by  no  means 
depends  upon  speculative  inference.  It  admits  of  proof,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  that  the  projects  of  the  South  fur  extending  its 
domain  have  never  been  more  daring,  and  have  never  been 
pushed  with  greater  energy,  than  during  the  last  live  years* — 
the  very  pei^od  in  which  the  Southern  leaders  have  been 
maturing  their  plans  for  seceding  from  the  Union.  The  Federal 
connexion  may  have  facilitated  the  ambitious  aims  of  the  South 
while  the  Federal  government  was  in  its  hands,  but,  far  from 
being  the  source  of  its  ambition,  it  is  because  it  offers,  under 
the  changed  conditions,  impediments  to  the  expanding  views 
of  the  more  aspiring  minds  of  the  South,  that  the  attempt  is 
now  made  to  break  loose  from  Federal  ties.  Extended  domi 
nion  is  in  truth  the  very  purpose  for  which  the  South  has 
eng  iged  in  the  present  struggle  ;  and  the  thought  which  now 
susiains  it  through  its  fiery  ordeal  is  (to  borrow  the  words  oi 
the  ablest  advocate  of  the  Southern  cause)  the  prospect  of  "an 
empire  in  the  future  .  .  .  extending  from  the  home  of  Wash 
ington  to  the  ancient  palaces  of  Montezuma — uniting  the  proud 
old  colonies  of  England  with  Spain's  richest  and  most  romantic 
dominions — combining  the  productions  of  the  great  valley  of 
the  Mississippi  with  the  mineral  riches,  the  magical  beauty, 
the  volcanic  grandeur  of  Mexico."f  In  plain  terms,  the  stake 
for  which  the  South  now  plays  is  Mexico  and  the  intervening 
Territories.  The  position  of  the  Slave  Power  in  the  Union 
has  thus  determined  the  mode,  not  supplied  the  principle, 
of  its  aggressive  action.  It  has  brought  out  into  more  distinct 
consciousness,  and  presented  in  a  more  definite  shape,  the  con 
nexion  between  the  ruling  passion  of  the  Slave  Power  and  the 
natural  means  for  its  gratification.  But  the  passion  and  the 
means  for  its  gratification  were  there  independently  of  the  poli- 

*  See  Reports  of  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society  for  the  years  1859  and  1860. 

\  Spence's  American  Union,  p.  286.  Here  for  a  moment  the  genius  of  the  South 
is  revealed  in  naked  majesty.  It  is  but  for  a  moment.  A  few  pages  further  on  (p. 
291)  the  scene  changes,  and  the  South  is  restored  to  its  proper  r6le.  "We  have 
presented  to  us  the  aspect  of  a  people  spurning  the  idea  of  conquest,  bounding  its 
aspirations  to  the  lowest  requirement  of  free  men — the  demand  for  autonomy : — 
"  Be  our  ignorance  of  the  merits  of  this  question  ever  so  great,  we  behold  a  country 
of  vast  extent  and  large  numbers  earnestly  desiring  self-government.  It  threatens 
none,  demands  nothing,  attacks  no  one,  but  wishes  to  rule  itself,  and  desires  to  be 
*  let  alone.'"  *"( 

"  Amphora  coepit 
In^titui ;  currente  rota  cur  urceus  exit  ?" 


106        POSITION  OF  SLAVERY  AT  TEE  REVOLUTION. 

tical  system  of  the  United  States ;  and  the  Slave  Power,  with  a 
vast  unoccupied  or  halt-peopled  territory  around  it,  could  not 
have  failed  under  any  circumstances,  in  the  Union  or  out  of  it, 
to  find  in  the  appropriation  of  that  territory  its  natural  career. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE    CAREER    OF    THE    SLAVE   POWER. 

THE  aggressive  ambition  of  the  Southern  States  has  heen  traced 
in  the  last  chapter  to  two  principles — the  economic  necessities 
forced  upon  them  by  the  character  of  their  industrial  system, 
and  the  growth  of  passions  and  habi's,  generated  by  the  pre 
sence  of  slavery,  which  require  for  their  satisfaction  political 
predominance.  In  the  present  chapter  I  propose  to  show  how 
these  two  principles  have  operated  in  the  actual  history  of  the 
United  States. 

At  the  time  of  the  establishment  of  the  Federal  Union  the 
position  of  slavery  in  North  America  was  that  of  an  exceptional 
and  declining  institution.  Many  circumstances  conspired  to 
produce  this  result.  The  war  of  independence  had  kindled 
among  the  people  a  spirit  of  liberty  which  was  strongly  antago 
nistic  to  compulsory  bondage.  In  the  leaders  of  the  revolt  this 
spirit  burned  with  peculiar  intensity;  and  though  many  of  them 
were  natives  of  the  South  and  slaveholders,  they  were  almost 
to  a  man  opposed  to  the  system,  and  anxious  for  its  abolition. 
From  the  Northern  States,  where  slavery  had  originally  been 
planted,  it  was  rapidly  disappearing.  In  the  unsettled  territory 
then  at  the  disposal  of  the  central  government — notwithstand 
ing  that  this  territory  had  been  ceded  to  it  by  a  slate  state — 
the  institution  was  by  an  ordinance  of  the  central  government 
proscribed.  Economic  causes  were  also  tending  to  its  over 
throw.  The  crops  which  are  adapted  to  slave  cultivation  are, 
as  we  have  seen,  few  in  number.  Those  which  at  this  time 
formed  the  principal  staples  of  the  slave  states  of  the  Union 
were  rice,  indigo,  and  tobacco.  The  last  was  already  produced 
in  quantities  more  than  sufficient  for  the  market ;  and  in  the 
two  former  India  was  rapidly  supplanting  the  United  States. 
Sugar  was  not  yet  grown  in  the  Union.  Cotton  was  still  an 
unimportant  crop.  But  it  happened  that  about  this  time  several 
causes  came  into  operation,  which  in  their  effect  completely 
reversed  the  direction  of  events,  drove  back  the  tide  of  freedom, 
and  gave  to  slavery  a  new  vitality  and  an  enlarged  career.  It 


RISE  OF  THE  COTTON  TRADE.  107 

was  now  that  the  stenm  engine,  having  undergone  the  improve 
ments  of  Watt,  was  first  applied  on  a  large  scale  to  manufac 
turing  industry.  Contemporaneously  the  inventions  of  Ilar- 
greaves,  Arkwright,  and  Crompton  in  cotton-spinning  had  been 
made.  But  these  inventions,  momentous  as  they  were,  would 
have  failed  in  great  part  of  their  effect,  had  they  not  been  sup 
plemented  by  another — the  invention  of  the  saw-gin  by  Whit 
ney.  Previously  to  this  invention  the  only  cotton  grown  in 
America,  which  was  available  for  the  general  purposes  of  com 
merce,  was  that  which  was  known  as  the  Sea  Island  kind.  This 
was  long  fibred  and  only  grew  in  a  few  favoured  localities. 
The  bulk  of  the  cotton  crop  consisted  of  the  short-fibred  varie 
ties,  but  the  difficulty  of  separating  the  seed  from  the  wool  in 
this  species  of  the  plant  by  the  methods  then  in  use,  was  so 
great  as  to  render  it  for  the  ordinary  purposes  of  cotton  manu 
facture  of  little  value.  It  was  to  overcome  this  difficulty  that 
Whitney  addressed  himself;  and  the  success  of  his  invention 
was  so  complete,  that  the  whole  American  crop  came  at  once 
into  general  demand.  At  the  same  time,  while  these  causes 
were  conducing  to  a  great  increase  in  the  general  consumption 
of  c«>tton,  a  vast  territory,  eminently  adapted  for  the  cultivation 
as  well  of  this  as  of  m<»st  other  slave  products,  came  into  the 
possession  of  the  United  States.  The  combined  effect  of  all 
these  occurrences  was  to  give  an  extraordinary  impulse  to  the 
cultivation  of  cotton  ;  and  cotton  being  pre-eminently  a  slave 
product,  and  moreover  only  suited  to  those  districts  of  the 
United  States  where  slavery  was  already  established,  this  was 
followed  by  a  corresponding  extension  of  slavery.  In  a  few 
years  after  Whitney's  invention,  the  exports  of  cotton  from  the 
United  States  were  decupled  ;  by  the  year  1810,  they  had  been 
multiplied  more  than  a  hundredfold,  and,  from  being  a  product 
of  small  account,  cotton  rapidly  rose  to  be  the  principal  staple 
of  the  Southern  States. 

The  early  progres-5  of  the  Southern  planters,  under  the  stimu 
lus  thus  given  to  their  enterprise,  attracted  little  observation. 
To  the  west  of  the  original  slave  states — Virginia,  the  Carolina*, 
and  Georgia — lay  extensive  districts  still  unsettled,  well  suited 
for  cultivation  by  slave  labour,  and  too  far  removed  from  the 
Free  States  to  be  sought  as  a  field  for  free  colonization.  Over 
these  regions  the  planters  rapidly  spread  themselves.  But  in 
1804:  an  immense  range  of  country  was  gained  to  the  United 
States  by  purchase  from  France,  which,  including  some  of  the 
richest  portions  of  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  from  its  junc 
tion  with  the  Missouri  to  its  mouth,  offered  equal  attractions  to 
settlers  from  both  divisions  of  the  Union.  This  was  the  Terri- 


108         ACQUISITION  OF  THE  LOUISIANA  TERRITORY. 

tory  of  Louisiana,  out  of  which  the  States  of  Louisiana,  Arkan 
sas,  Missouri,  and  Kansas  have  since  heen  formed;  and  it  was 
here  that  the  rival  pretensions  of  the  two  systems  of  freedom 
and  slavery  first  came  into  collision. 

The  Territory  thus  acquired  stood,  in  its  relations  to  the  Fede 
ral  government,  on  precisely  the  same  footing  with  a  large  dis 
trict  known  as  the  North-western  Territory,  which  had  at  an 
earlier  period,  by  cession  from  Virginia,  come  into  possession 
of  the  United  States.  The  government  of  tliis  Territory  had 
heen  provided  for  by  a  celebrated  instrument — the  ordinance 
of  1787 — enacted  by  Congress  while  yet  constituted  under  the 
Articles  of  Confederation,  and  by  this  instrument  involuntary 
servitude,  except  in  punishment  of  crime,  was  prohibited  within 
the  Territory.  It  has  been  questioned  whether,  in  issuing  this 
ordinance  while  still  under  the  Articles  of  Confederation,  Con 
gress  did  not  exceed  its  proper  powers.*  The  question  is,  how 
ever,  curious  rather  than  important ;  for  in  framing  the  Consti 
tution  of  the  United  States  an  article  was  introduced  to  provide 
for  this  very  case.  By  this  article  it  was  enacted  that  "  Con 
gress  should  have  power  to  dispose  of,  and  make  all  needful 
rules  and  regulations  respecting,  the  Territory  or  other  property 
belonging  to  the  United  States."  There  could,  therefore,  be  no 
doubt  as  to  the  competency  of  Congress,  under  the  Constitution, 
to  legislate  for  the  Territories;  and  there  was,  consequently,  no 
legal  barrier  to  applying  to  the  new  acquisition  obtained  from 
France  the  same  rule  which  had  by  the  ordinance  of  1787  been 
applied  to  the  North-Western  Territory.  There  were,  however, 
practical  difficulties  in  the  way.  Slave  institutions  jvere 
already  existing  in  some  portions  of  the  Territory  ot  Louisiana; 
and  when  the  occasion  arose  for  providing  for  the  government 
of  the  remainder,  it  happened  that  the  attention  of  the  North 
was  fully  occupied  with  its  foreign  relations;  for  this  was  the 
time  when  those  negociations  with  England  were  in  progress 
which  resulted  in  the  war  of  1812.  These  circumstances  were 
favourable  to  the  advances  of  the  Slave  Power.  From  the 
basis  of  operations  supplied  by  the  French  slave  colony  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Mississippi  the  planters  rapidly  carried  their  insti 
tution  along  the  western  bank  of  that  river.  By  degrees  they 
reached  the  district  which  now  forms  the  State  of  Missouri,  and 
by  the  year  1818  had  acquired  there  so  firm  a  footing  as  to  be  ' 
enabled  to  claim  for  it  admission  into  the  Union  as  a  slave 
state. 

The  admission  of  Missouri  to  the  Union  forms  for  many  rea- 

*  The  Federalist,  No.  38.     See  Story  on  The  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  voL 
i.  p.  184. 


IMPORTANCE  OF  MISSOURI.  109 

sons  an  epoch  in  the  grand  struggle  between  free  and  slave 
labour  in  North  America.  It  was  on  this  occasion  that  both 
parties  appear  first  to  have  become  sensible  of  the  inherent 
antagonism  of  their  respective  positions,  and  to  have  put  forth 
their  whole  strength  in  mutual  opposition.  The  contest  was 
carried  on  with  extraordinary  violence,  and  was  terminated  by 
a  compromise,  which  was  long  considered  in  the  light  of  a 
national  compact  irrevocably  binding  on  the  combatants  on 
both  sides.  The  occasion  being  of  this  importance,  it  is  desira 
ble  that  we  should  appreciate  with  as  much  precision  as  possi 
ble  the  stake  which  was  at  issue,  and  the  motives  which  ani 
mated  the  contending  parties. 

And  here,  though  at  the  risk  of  wearying  the  reader,  it  may 
be  well  once  more  to  repeat  that  the  aggressive  character  of  the 
Slave  Power  has  been  traced  to.  two  principles — the  one  econo 
mic,  proceeding  from  the  necessity  to  slavery  of  a  constant  sup 
ply  of  fresh  soils;  the  other  political,  having  its  roots  in  that 
passion  for  power  which  the  position  of  slaveholders — as  a 
dominant  race,  isolated  from  their  equals,  and  shut  out  from 
the  pursuits  which  distribute  the  energies  of  free  communities 
into  various  channels — inevitably  engenders.  Again,  it  has 
been  seen  that  this  latter  principle,  under  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  exerts  itself  chiefly  in  the  effort  to  increase 
Southern  representation  in  the  Senate  through  the  creation  of 
new  slave  states.  Lastly,  it  has  appeared  that  the  system  of 
society  which  slavery  produces  is  in  its  nature  an  exclusive  sys 
tem — its  presence  acting  as  a  cause  of  repulsion  towards  free 
societies — and  that,  consequently,  when  these  two  forms  of 
society  come  into  contact  on  the  same  territory,  an  inevitable 
antagonism  springs  up  between  them,  an  antagonism  which 
displays  itself  in  the  efforts  which  they  make  to  outstrip  each 
other  in  a  race  of  colonization,  each  side  endeavouring  by  prior 
occupation  of  the  soil  to  exclude  its  rival  and  keep  open  for 
itself  a  field  for  future  growth. 

These  being  the  principles  which  governed  the  conflicting 
interests,  we  shall  find  that  the  stake  which  was  at  issue  in  the 
Missouri  controversy  was  well  calculated  to  call  them  actively 
into  play. 

The  position  of  Missouri  is  one  of  the  most  commanding  in 
the  central  portion  of  North  America.  Possessing  great  agri 
cultural  and  mineral  resources,  it  is  watered  by  two  of  the  no 
blest  rivers  in  the  continent — the  Mississippi  and  the  Missouri. 
It  is  in  the  direct  line  of  movement  westward  from  the  Free 
States,  If  established  as  a  free  state,  it  would  become  a  centre 
of  colonization  for  the  North,  from  which  free  labour  would 


110  OPPOSITION  OF  THE  NORTH. 

pour  along  the  valleys  of  the  Mississippi,  the  Missouri,  and  the 
Arkansas,  and  thence  to  Northern  Texas.  On  the  other  hand, 
if  occupied  by  slave  institutions,  it  would  cut  off  the  natural 
expansion  of  the  Free  States,  and  turn  the  stream  of  emigration 
in  the  direction  of  the  north-west — to  less  fertile  and  less  genial 
regions.  But  the  political  consequences  depending  upon  the 
settlement  of  this  question  were  not  less  momentous  than  the 
industrial  and  social.  When  the  proposal  for  the  admission  of 
Missouri  was  first  brought  before  Congress,  the  Free  and  the 
Slave  States  were  exactly  equal  in  number.  The  admission  of 
Missouri  as  a  slave  state  would  just  turn  the  scale  in  favour  of 
the  South,  and,  by  consequence,  give  it  a  superiority  in  the 
Senate — a  superiority,  which,  in  conjunction  with  the  advan 
tages  it  possessed  in  the  Lower  House  in  virtue  of  its  capacity 
for  combined  action,  could  scarcely  fail  to  render  it  the  para 
mount  power  in  the  Union.  The  success  of  the  South,  more 
over,  in  this  instance,  owing  to  the  commanding  geographical 
position  of  Missouri,  would  open  for  it  the  path  to  future  con 
quests ;  for,  by  diverting  the  stream  of  Northern  emigration  to 
the  north-west,  it  would  secure  for  the  future  use  of  the  Slave 
Power  the  vast  reach  of  fertile  territory  lying  between  that 
state  and  Texas — an  area  which  comprised  some  of  the  richest 
and  best  watered  lands  within  the  domain  of  the  Republic. 
The  terms,  therefore,  on  which  Missouri  should  be  admitted  to 
the  Union  became  a  question  of  prime  importance,  in  connexion 
with  the  present  and  future  interests  of  slave  and  free  institu 
tions  on  the  continent  of  North  America. 

Accordingly,  no  sooner  was  the  proposition  raised  for  the 
admission  of  Missouri  to  the  Union  than  the  North  rose  ener 
getically  against  the  demand,  and  a  violent  political  contest 
ensued.  It  lasted  nearly  three  years,  and  was  terminated  by 
the  celebrated  Compromise  which  has  become  a  landmark  in 
American  history.  Under  this  settlement  Missouri  was  received 
into  the  Union  as  a  slave  state,  on  the  condition  that  in  future 
slavery  should  not  be  carried  north  of  the  parallel  3HC  30'  of 
north  latitude.  In  all  essential  respects  this  was  a  victory  for 
the  slaveholders.  They  obtained  all  that  they  then  desired — 
the  most  commanding  position  in  central  America,  a  path  to 
future  conquests,  a  recognised  footing  in  the  Territory  of  the 
Union ;  and  in  return  for  this  they  gave  but  a  naked  promise, 
to  be  fulfilled  at  a  future  time,  and  which  could  be  revoked  as 
easily  as  it  was  given.  Their  triumph  was  slightly  qualified 
by  the  admission  about  the*same  time  of  Maine  as  a  free  state, 
but  it  was  sufficiently  complete,  and  it  entailed  all  the  conse 
quences  which  might  have  been,  and  which  were,  foreseen  to 


DESIGNS  UPON  TEXAS.  Ill 

be  involved  in  it.  From  the  passing  of  the  Missouri  Compro 
mise  down  to  the  Presidential  election  of  1860  the  predominance 
of  the  Slave  Power  in  the  politics  of  the  Union  has  suffered  no 
effectual  check. 

The  episode  of  the  Seminole  war — the  next  prominent  scene 
in  which  the  Slave  Power  figured — though  sufficiently  costly 
and  humiliating  to  the  United  States,  need  not  detain  us  here 
at  any  length.  It  was  little  more  than  a  protracted  slave-hunt, 
carried  on  with  circumstances  of  more  than  usual  cruelty,  by 
means  of  the  forces  of  the  Union,  against  the  Indians  of  Florida 
to  whom  a  multitude  of  slaves  had  escaped.  In  this  war  Oceola, 
the  celebrated  Indian  chief,  was  treacherously  captured  by  two 
American  generals,  while  "  holding  a  talk  "  with  them.  In  this 
war  also  the  soldiers  of  the  Union  allowed  themselves  to  be 
disgraced  by  co-operating  with  bloodhounds,  imported  for  the 
purpose  from  Cuba,  in  hunting  down  the  Indians.  The  general 
who  commanded  the  Union  forces  in  this  ignoble  service,  and 
who  is  said  to  have  lent  his  sanction  to  these  atrocities,  was 
General  Zachary  Taylor,  afterwards  rewarded  for  his  zeal  in 
the  cause  of  the  Slave  Power  by  elevation  to  the  Presidency. 
The  war  lasted  seven  years,  cost  the  country,  it  is  estimated, 
40,000,000  dollars,  and  resulted  in  the  capture  of  a  few  hun 
dred  slaves. 

If  the  Seminole  war  led  to  no  important  results,  it  was  far 
otherwise  with  the  annexation  of  Texas.  This  transaction  has 
long  passed  into  a  byeword  for  unprovoked  and  unscrupulous 
plunder  of  a  weak  by  a  strong  power.  The  designs  of  its  authors 
have  always  been  notorious.  Still,  as  affording  a  typical  ex 
ample  of  a  mode  of  aggression  which  has  since  been  frequently 
employed  and  is  probably  not  yet  obsolete,  it  may  be  well  to 
recall  some  of  its  leading  incidents  at  the  present  time. 

Texas,  as  all  the  world  knows,  was  before  its  annexation  to 
the  Union  a  province  of  Mexico — a  country  at  peace  with  the 
Union,  and  anxious  to  cultivate  with  it  friendly  relations. 
Mexico,  however,  was  a  weak  state,  still  fresh  from  the 
throes  of  revolution.  The  district  in  question  was  one  of  great 
fertility,  possessing  in  this  respect,  as  well  as  in  its  climate  and 
river  communications,  remarkable  advantages  for  slave  settle 
ment  :  it  was,  moreover,  but  very  thinly  peopled,  and  was 
separated  by  an  immense  distance  from  the  seat  of  govern 
ment.  So  early  as  1821,  while  "Spanish  authority  was  still 
maintained  in  Mexico,  three  hundred  families  from  Louisiana 
were  permitted  to  settle  in  this  tempting  region,  under  the 
express  condition  that  they  should  submit  to  the  laws  of  the 
country.  By  this  means  a  footing  was  obtained  in  the  district. 


112  VIEWS  OF  THE  ANNEXATIONISTS. 

The  original  immigrants  were  in  time  followed  by  others,  who 
like  their  predecessors  undertook  to  conform  to  the  laws  of 
Mexico  ;  and  for  some  years  the  proceedings  of  the  new  settlers 
were  conducted  with  proper  respect  for  the  authority  of  the 
state  in  which  they  had  taken  up  their  ab^de.  But  this  aspect 
of  affairs  did  not  long  continue.  As  the  colony  increased  in 
numbers  and  wealth,  it  became  evident  to  the  slaveowners  of 
the  neighbouring  states  that  they  had  a  "  natural  right"  to  the 
territory.  It  offered  an  admirable  field  for  slave  cultivation  ;  it 
was  in  their  immediate  proximity;  of  all  claimants  they  were 
the  strongest  and  u  smartest  f  *  in  short,  they  wanted  the  coun 
try,  and  felt  themselves  able  to  take  it;  and  they  resolved  it 
should  be  theirs.  "  Manifest  destiny"  beckoned  them  forward, 
and  they  prepared,  with  reverent  submission  to  the  decrees  of 
Providence,  to  fulfil  their  fate. 

The  agency  by  which  the  annexationists  proceeded  to  give 
effect  to  their  natural  right  was  land  speculation.  Grants  of 
extensive  districts  were  corruptly  obtained  from  local  bodies 
which  had  no  competency  to  make. them  ;  these  were  made  the 
basis  for  a  creation  of  scrip,  which  was  thrown  in  large  quanti 
ties  upon  the  markets  of  the  United  States.  To  give  an  idea 
of  the  scale  on  which  these  transactions  were  carried  on,  one 
grant,  obtained  from  the  legislature  of  Coahuila,  conveyed  in 
perpetuity  to  American  citizens,  in  direct  violation  of  the  laws 
of  Mexico,  no  less  than  four  hundred  square  leagues  of  the  pub 
lic  land — an  area  as  large  as  Lancashire — for  a  consideration 
of  20,000  dollars  !  In  addition  to  transactions  of  this  kind,  a 
manufacture  of  titles  purely  fictitious  was  freely  carried  on. 
By  this  means  great  numbers  of  the  people  in  the  United 
States  became  the  possessors  of  nominal  titles  to  land  in  Texas 
— titles,  which,  being  of  course  unrecognized  by  the  central 
authority  in  Mexico,  could  only  be  substantiated  by  setting  aside 
that  authority.  "  Texan  independence  could  alone  legalize  the 
mighty  frauds  of  the  land  speculators.  Texas  must  be  wrested 
from  the  country  to  which  she  owed  allegiance,  that  her  soil 
might  pass  into  the  hands  of  cheating  and  cheated  foreigners." 

But  the  motive  of  rapacity  was  reinforced  by  a  stronger  one. 
Mexico  from  the  moment  of  her  independence  had  shewn  a 
creditable  determination  to  uphold  the  most  essential  of  human 
rights.  By  a  law,  passed  shortly  after  her  severance  from 
Spain,  slavery  was  abolished  in  her  dominions,  and  prohibited 
for  all  future  time.  Such  a  law  was  far  from  being  in  keeping 
with  the  views  of  the  new  settlers.  Accordingly,  they  pro 
ceeded  to  evade  it  by  various  artifices.  The  most  usual  expe 
dient  was  that  of  introducing  slaves  into  the  country  under  the 


TEXAS  ANNEXED.  113 

guise  of  apprentices,  the  term  of  whose  service  commonly 
extended  to  ninety-nine  years.  On  the  point,  however,  of 
maintaining  freedom  of  labour  in  their  dominions,  the  Mexican 
authorities  were  in  earnest,  and  the  move  of  the  settlers  was 
met  by  a  decree  of  the  legislatures  of  Coahuila  and  Texas, 
annulling  all  indentures  of  labour  for  a  longer  period  than  ten 
years,  and  providing  for  the  freedom  of  children  born  during 
apprenticeship.  But  slaveholders  were  not  to  be  so  baflied. 
u  The  settled  invincible  purpose  of  Mexico  to  exclude  slavery 
from  her  limits  created  as  strong  a  purpose  to  annihilate  her 
authority.  The  project  of  dismembering  a  neighbouring  repub 
lic  that  slaveholders  and  slaves  might  overspread  a~  region 
which  had  been  consecrated  to  a  free  population,  was  discussed 
in  the  newspapers  as  coolly  as  if  it  were  a  matter  of  obvious 
right  and  unquestioned  humanity."*  The  plot  having  been 
carried  to  this  point,  the  consummation  of  the  plunder  was 
easy.  A  conspiracy  was  hatched  ;  a  rebellion  organized  ;  fili 
busters  were  introduced  from  the  border  states  ;  and  a  popula 
tion,  which  at  the  commencement  of  the  outbreak  did  riot 
number  twenty  thousand  persons,  asserted  its  independence, 
was  recognized  by  the  Federal  Government,  and  with  little 
delay  annexed  to  the  Union. 

The  annexation  of  Texas  was  too  successful  a  stroke  of 
policy  not  to  be  regarded  as  a  precedent.  It  was  accordingly 
followed  by  the  Mexican  war  of  1846,  which  resulted  in  an 
easy  victory  over  an  unequal  antagonist.  By  the  treaty  con 
cluded  between  the  United  States  and  Mexico  in  1848,  the 
immense  range  of  country  extending  from  Texas  to  the  Pacific 
in  one  direction,  and  from  the  present  frontier  of  Mexico  to  the 
Territory  of  Oregon  in  the  other,  and  including  the  magnificent 
prize  of  California,  was  added  to  the  domain  of  the  Republic. 
The  disposal  of  this  opulent  spoil  became  at  once  a  subject  of 
overwhelming  interest,  and  for  two  years  the  Union  was  shaken 
by  the  contests  which  it  produced.  The  point  on  which  the- 
imrnediate  interest  centred  was  California.  Was  it  to  be  a  free 
or  a  slave  state  ?  The  Southern  party  which  had  forced  on  the 
war  had  no  other  intention  than  to  appropriate  this,  its  riches* 
fruit;  but  the  discovery  of  gold  in  the  alluvial  sands  of  the 
Sacramento,  just  at  the  time  when  the  annexation  was  accom 
plished,  had  attracted  thither  from  the  North  a  large  preponde 
rance  of  free  settlers,  and  these  pronounced  loudly  for  free 
institutions.  The  question  was  settled,  as  so  many  similar 
questions  had  been  settled,  by  a  compromise.  The  Slave  party 

*  Channing'a  Works,  Letter  on  Texas. 


^DESIGNS  UPON  KANSAS. 

consented  to  waive  its  claim,  but  not  without  stipulating  for  a 
concession  in  return.  The  admission  of  California  as  a  free 
state  was  purchased  by  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law.*  The  price 
was  a  shameful  one  ;  yet  it  seems  certain  that  this  transaction 
forms  an  exception  to  the  ordinary  course  of  dealing  between 
the  Slave  Power  and  its  opponents,  and  that  in  the  event  the 
balance  of  advantage  lay  largely  with  the  Free  States.  The 
Fugitive  Slave  Law  has  been  for  the  Slave  Power  a  question 
able  gain.  Amongst  its  first  fruits  was  Uncle  TonJs  Cabin. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  acquisition  of  California  has  been  a 
solid  advantage  for  the  free  party.  A  free  state  has  thus  been 
established  in  the  rear  of  the  Slave  Power,  a  centre  hencefor 
ward  for  free  immigration,  and  probably  destined  at  no  dis 
tant  time  to  play  an  important  part  in  the  struggle  between 
the  rival  principles.  Thus,  by  the  accident  of  a  gold  discovery, 
the  well  laid  plans  of  the  Slave  party  were  frustrated,  and  a 
war  which  was  undertaken  by  slaveholders  in  the  interest  of 
slavery  has  eventuated  in  a  serious  blow  to  their  power. 

The  differences  arising  out  of  the  conquests  made  in  the 
Mexican  war  having  been  adjusted  by  the  compromises  of 
1850,  the  Slave  Power  was  again  at  liberty  to  look  around  it 
and  to  meditate  new  acquisitions.  The  Territory  which  had 
fallen  to  slavery  under  the  Missouri  Compromise  had  now  been 
appropriated;  Florida  had  also  been  acquired  ;  Texas  had  been 
annexed  ;  New  Mexico  lay  open,  but  for  the  present  it  was  too 
distant  for  settlement,  and  the  numerous  tribes  of  Indians 
which  inhabited  it,  made  it  an  undesirable  abode  for  slave 
holders,  whose  experience  in  Florida  naturally  rendered  them 
averse  to  such  neighbours.  But  the  territory  of  Kansas  and 
Nebraska  was  comparatively  close  at  hand,  and  was  inviting 
from  its  fertility  and  salubrity.  On  political  grounds,  more 
over,  there  was  need  that  the  Slave  Power  should  bestir  itself. 
The  occasion  was  not  unlike  that  wrhich  had  preceded  the 
admission  of  Missouri  to  the  Union.  From  the  passing  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise  down  to  the  year  1850,  the  balance 
between  the  Free  and  Slave  States  had  been  fairly  preserved. 
The  North  had  during  that  time  acquired  Michigan,  Iowa,  and 
Wisconsin  ;  the  South,  Arkansas,  Florida,  and  Texas  ;  the  natu 
ral  expansion  of  the  one  section  had  been  steadily  counter 
poised  by  the  factitious  annexations  effected  by  the  other.  But 
the  admission  of  California  as  a  free  state  had  disturbed  this 
equilibrium.  To  restore  it  there  was  need  of  a  new  slave  state ; 

*  T.o  which  the  opponents  of  slavery  contrived  to  add  a  bill  for  the  exclusion  of 
the  slave  market  from  the  District  of  Columbia.  The  same  series  of  measures  also 
included  bills  for  the  settlement  of  the  Territories  of  Utah  and  New  Mexico. 


THE  KANSAS  AND  NEBRASKA  BILL.  115 

and  where  could  this  be  more  conveniently  placed  than  in  the 
rich  contiguous  Territory  of  Kansas  ? 

Bat  to  the  realization  of  this  scheme  there  was  an  obstacle 
in  the  way.  The  Territory  of  Kansas  was  part  of  the  great 
tract  obtained  by  purchase  from  France  in  180-t,  and  being 
north  of  the  line  traced  by  the  Missouri  Compromise,  was 
therefore  by  the  terms  of  that  measure  withdrawn  from  the 
field  of  slave  settlement.  Now,  the  Missouri  Compromise  was 
something  more  than  an  ordinary  legislative  act.  It  was  a 
compact  between  two  great  opposing  interests,  in  virtue  of 
which  one  of  those  interests  obtained  at  the  time  valuable  con 
sideration  on  the  condition  of  abstaining  from  certain  preten 
sions  in  the  future.  It  was,  moreover,  eminently  a  slaveholders' 
measure.  u  It  was  first  brought  forward  by  a  slaveholder — 
vindicated  by  slaveholders  in  debate — finally  sanctioned  by 
slaveholding  votes— also  upheld  at  the  time  by  the  essential 
approbation  of  a  slavehnlding  President,  James  Monroe,  and 
his  cabinet,  of  whom  a  majority  were  slaveholders,  including 
Mr.  Calhonn  himself."*  The  measure  was  thus  binding  on  the 
Slave  Party  by  every  consideration  of  honour  and  good  faith. 
But  honour  and  good  faith  have  always  proved  frail  bonds  in 
restraining  the  ambition  of  the  Slave  power.  The  Missouri 
Compromise  had  served  its  end.  Under  it  the  most  command 
ing  central  position  in  tho  continent  had  been  secured.  Under 
it  Arkansas  had  been  added  to  the  slave  domain.  There  was 
nothing  more  to  be  gained  by  maintaining  it.  The  plea  of 
uneonstitutionality,  therefore, — "like  the  plea  of  usury  after 
the  borrowed  money  has  been  enjoyed  " — was  set  up.  In  pass 
ing  the  Missouri  Compromise  Congress  wras  said  to  have 
exceeded  its  competence.  It  wTas  not  for  it  to  "legislate"  free 
dom  or  slavery  into  the  Territories.  This  was  a  question  to  be 
determined  by  the  inhabitants  of  those  Territories,  whose  right 
it  was  to  "  regulate  their  domestic  institutions  in  their  own 
way."  Accordingly,  in  1854,  a  bill  known  as  the  Kansas  and 
Nebraska  Bill  was  introduced  by  Mr.  Douglas,  a  Northern 
democrat  and  an  aspirant  to  the  Presidency.  By  this  bill  the 
Missouri  Compromise  was  abrogated,  and  in  its  place  a  princi 
ple  was  established,  popularly  known  as  that  of  *'  squatter 
sovereignty,"  by  which  it  was  resolved  that  the  future  settle 
ment  of  the  Territories  should  be  determined.  The  principle 
is  thus  described  in  the  words  of  the  act : — u  It  being  the  true 
intent  and  meaning  of  this  act  not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any 
state  or  territory,  nor  to  exclude  it  therefrom,  but  to  leave  the 


Sumner's  Speech. 


116         KANSAS  THRO  WN  OPEN  FOE  SETTLEMENT. 

people  thereof  perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate  their  domes 
tic  institutions  in  their  own  way,  subject  only  to  the  Consti 
tution  of  the  United  States."  By  this  plausible  measure — 
plausible  because  it  appeared  to  extend  to  the  settlement  of  the 
question  of  slavery  the  democratic  principle  which  was  ac 
knowledged  as  the  basis  of  the  general  government — the  . 
inconvenient  restraints  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  were  got 
rid  of,  and  the  ground  was  cleared  for  the  operations  of  the 
Slave  Power. 

Meanwhile,  however,  the  North,  aroused  b.y  the  discussions 
which  had  taken  place  to  a  sense  of  the  importance  of  the 
crisis,  was  preparing  to  try  issues  with  its  opponent  on  the 
ground  which  it  had  chosen.  On  the  30th  of  May,  1854,  the 
territory  of  Kansas  was  by  Act  of  Congress  thrown  open  to 
settlers ;  and  at  once  from  all  quarters  of  the  Free  States 
crowds  of  emigrants  flocked  to  the  debatable  land.  The  work 
of  settlement  was  pushed  with  characteristic  ardour.  The  land 
was  rapidly  cleared  ;  cultivation  was  commenced  ;  the  founda 
tions  of  towns  were  marked  out :  the  whole  country  glowed 
with  the  bustle  of  colonizing  activity.  In  a  few  months  the 
free  settlers  had  acquired  a  decided  preponderance  over  their 
rivals  in  the  new  territory  ;  and  all  things  seemed  to  promise 
— the  will  of  the  inhabitants  being  the  arbiter  of  the  question 
— that  Kansas  would  ere  long  be  peaceably  enrolled  in  the 
Union  as  a  Free  State.  But  the  Slave  Power  had  other  re 
sources  in  store.  It  could  not,  and  probably  did  not,  hope  to 
triumph  on  a  fair  field  in  a  colonization  struggle  with  the 
North.  In  all  the  qualifications  requisite  for  such  a  struggle 
the  North  was  immeasurably  its  superior.  It  had  at  its  dis 
posal  a  vastly  larger  population,  and  this  population,  energetic, 
intelligent,  and  enterprising,  was  in  all  essential  respects  far 
better  adapted  to  the  work  in  hand  than  any  which  the  South 
could  bring  against  it.  But  it  was  not  by  fair  means  that  the 
South  hoped  to  attain  its  object.  Kansas  adjoined  Mis 
souri.  In  Missouri,  as  in  all  the  Slave  States,  there  was  a 
mean  white  population — a  population  utterly  unfit  for  the 
work  of  colonization,  but  well  qualified  and  well  disposed 
to  take  part  in  any  expedition  which  promised  rapine  and 
blood.  It  was  on  the  services  of  this  people  that  the 
Slave  Power  relied  for  the  success  of  its  scheme.  It  could 
not  out-colonize  the  freesoilers  from  the  North,  but  it  could, 
it  was  hoped,  make  the  territory  too  hot  to  hold  them, 
and  ultimately,  being  left  master  of  the  field,  it  might  occupy 
it  at  leisure.  This,  however,  was  not  its  only  resource.  In 
the  government  at  Washington  it  had  a  sure  ally,  which, 


INVASION  OF  THE  TERRITORY.  117 

though  affecting  to  disapprove,  could  be  depended  upon  to 
connive  at,  and  when  necessary  to  sustain,  its  lawless  proceed 
ings.  Resting  upon  these  supports,  the  Slave  Power  took  its 
measures.  It  was  necessary,  in  the  first  place,  that  a  staff  of 
functionaries  should  be  appointed  for  the  Kansas  territory.  Of 
these  the  nomination  lay  with  the  President,  and  needed  to  be 
confirmed  by  the  Senate.  But  the  President  was  the  nominee 
of  the  South,  and  in  the  Senate  the  South  was  all-powerful. 
There  was,  therefore,  no  difficulty  in  securing  officials  on  whom 
the  South  could  thoroughly  rely.  Meantime  preparations  were 
made  for  active  operations.  Bands  of  border  ruffians  were 
mustered  on  the  Missouri  frontier,  and  held  in  leash  to  be  let 
slip  at  the  decisive  moment.  That  moment  at  length  arrived. 
On  the  20th  of  November,  1854,  the  infant  Territory  was  to 
elect  a  delegate  to  appear  and  speak  in  its  behalf  in  the 
National  Congress.  On  that  day  the  myrmidons  of  slavery, 
led  by  experienced  filibusters  from  the  South,  rushed  upon  the 
scene,  seized  by  force  upon  the  ballot-boxes,  and  crushed  all 
free  action  among  the  inhabitants.  On  the  30th  of  March  fol 
lowing  the  Territorial  legislature  was  to  be  chosen.  The  inva 
sion  was  repeate'd  on  a  larger  scale  and  with  a  more  complete 
organization.  Armed  violence  was  now  reduced  to  system. 
Again  and  again  were  these  raids  renewed  with  circumstances 
of  ever-increasing  atrocity,  turning  the  Constitution  into  a 
mockery — a  pliant  instrument  in  the  haryls  of  a  reckless  fac 
tion.  Under  these  auspices  the  elections  were  held.  The 
result  was  the  return,  by  a  population  of  whom  the  great  ma 
jority  were  freesoilers,  of  a  pro  slavery  delegate,  the  erection 
of  a  pro-slavery  legislature,  and  the  promulgation  of  a  pro- 
slavery  constitution. 

Some  of  the  provisions  of  this  strange  instrument  deserve  to 
be  recorded.  Taking  the  laws  of  their  own  state  as  their 
model,  the  invaders,  in  the  first  place,  re-enacted  in  the  gross 
the  code  of  Missouri.  But  more  stringent  measures  than  the 
Missourian  code  contained  were  required  to  meet  the  present 
emergency.  Accordingly,  all  persons  holding  anti-slavery 
opinions  were  by  a  single  stroke  disfranchised.  On  the  other 
hand — the  object  being  to  rule  the  territory  through  the  armed 
rabble  of  Missouri — it  was  enacted  that  every  one  might  vote, 
whether  resident  or  not,  who,  holding  opinions  favourable  to 
slavery,  should  pay  one  dollar  on  the  day  of  election,  and  swear 
to  uphold  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  and  the  Nebraska  Bill. 
The  ideas  which  the  Slave  Power  entertained  on  the  subject  of 
freedom  of  the  press  may  be  gathered  from  one  enactment, 
which  provided  that  the  advocacy  of  anti-slavery  opinions 


118  THE  LEA  VENWOBTH  CONSTITUTION-. 

should  be  treated  as  felony,  and  punished  with  imprisonment 
and  hard  labour;  while  its  notions  of  lenity  are  illustrated  by 
its  mode  of  dealing  with  the  offence  of  facilitating  the  escape 
of  slaves.  Against  this — of  all  crimes  in  the  ethics  of  the  Slave 
Power  the  most  heinous — and  against  other  modes  of  attacking 
slave  property,  the  penalty  of  death  was  denounced  no  less  than 
':>rty-eight  different  times. 

Such  was  the  mild  and  liberal  spirit  of  the  Leavenworth 
Jonstitution.  Once  promulgated,  it  became  necessary  to  carry 
•t  into  effect ;  and  the  means  adopted  for  this  purpose  were  in 
keeping  with  all  which  had  gone  before.  The  country  was 
given  over  to  be  dealt  with  by  the  invaders  at  their  pleasure.* 
Gangs  of  these  armed  ruffians,  making  no  pretence  of  being 
settlers,  having  no  other  means  of  support  than  pillage,  patrol 
led  the  country,  "  preserving,"  so  it  was  phrased  in  Congress, 
"law  and  order."  The  Federal  functionaries, meanwhile,  looked 
on  in  silence,  contenting  themselves  with  ratifying  the  Constitu 
tion  which  had  been  passed;  while  the  Federal  troops,  by  ab 
staining  from  all  interference  with  the  apostles  of  "  order,"  arid, 
when  necessary,  by  overawing  the  disaffected,  proved  useful 
allies  of  the  movement. 

By  such  means  the  Slave  Power  succeeded  in  establishing 
itself  in  Kansas ;  but  its  reign  was  brief.  The  atrocities  it  had 
committed  roused  a  spirit  for  which  the  South  was  not  pre- 


*  General  statements  fail  to  convey  any  idea  of  the  atrocities  which  were  com 
mitted.  The  following  anecdote  is  told  by  Mr.  Thomas  K.  Gladstone — an  English 
man  who  visited  Kansas  during  the  time  of  the  disturbances — in  his  work  entitled 
Kansas;  or  Squatter  Life  and  Border  Warfare  in  the  Far  West : — 

'•  Individual  instances  of  barbarity  continued  to  occur  almost  daily.  In  one 
instance,  a  man,  belonging  to  General  Atchineon's  camp,  made  a  bet  of  six  dollars 
against  a  pair  of  boots  that  he  would  go  and  return  with  an  Abolitionist's  scalp 
within  two  hours.  He  went  forth  on  horseback.  Before  he  had  gone  two  miles 
from  Leavenworth  on  the  road  to  Lawrence,  he  met  a  Mr.  Hops,  driving  a  buggy. 
Mr.  Hops  was  a  gentleman  of  high  respectability,  who  had  come  home  with  his 
wife,  a  few  days  previously,  to  join  her  brother,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Nute  of  Boston,  who 
had  for  some  time  been  labouring  as  a  minister  in  Lawrence.  The  ruffian  asked  Mr. 
Hops  where  he  came  from.  He  replied  he,  was  last  from  Lawrence.  Enough  ! 
The  ruffian  drew  his  revolver,  and  shot  him  through  the  head.  As  the  body  fell 
from  the  chaise,  he  dismounted,  took  his  knife,  scalped  his  victim,  and  then  returned 
to  Leavenworth,  where,  having  won  his  boots,  he  paraded  the  streets  with  the 
bleeding  scalp  of  the  murdered  man  stuck  upon  a  pole.  This  was  on  the  19th  of 
August.  Eight  days  later,  when  the  widow,  who  had  been  left  at  Lawrence  sick, 
was  brought  down  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Nute,  in  the  hope  of  recovering  the  body  of  her 
murdered  husband,  the  whole  party,  consisting  of  about  twenty  persons  in  five 
waggons,  was  seized,  robbed  of  all  they  had,  and  placed  in  confinement.  One  was 
shot  the  next  day  for  attempting  to  escape.  The  widow  and  one  or  two  others 
were  allowed  to  depart  by  steamer,  but  penniless.  A  German  incautiously  con 
demning  the  outrage  was  shot ;  and  another  saved  his  life  only  by  precipitate 
flight." 


ALARM  IN  THE  NORTH.  119 

pared.  The  settlers,  finding  themselves  betrayed  by  the 
government  which  should  have  protected  them,  rose  in  arms. 
The  injuries  to  which  they  had  been  exposed  only  fixed  them 
in  the  resolution  to  defend  the  country  which  was  rightly  theirs; 
and  the  story  of  their  wrongs,  being  carried  to  the  North, 
excited  there  a  feeling  which  brought  flocking  to  their  assist 
ance  crowds  of  freemen.  The  efforts  of  the  Slave  party,  though 
violent,  were  fitful ;  those  of  the  Free  settlers  were  resolute  and 
sustained.  After  a  desultory  civil  war,  the  former  was  utterly 
defeated,  the  pro-slavery  constitution  was  overthrown,  and  a 
free  legislature  and  free  institutions  were  established. 

Such  was  the  result  of  the  experiment  of  "squatter  sove 
reignty"  in  the  Territories.  After  a  long  career  of  success,  the 
,  South  had  at  length  been  forced  to  give  way  and  to  abandon  a 
design  which  it  had  deliberately  formed.  But  the  defeat  in 
Kansas  was  not  an  ordinary  reverse.  It  could  be  attributed 
neither  to  remissness  nor  to  fortune.  The  South  had  brought  into 
action  all  its  available  strength,  and  the  contest  had  been  fought 
under  conditions  which  it  had  itself  prescribed.  It  had  selected 
its  own  ground ;  it  had  taken  its  opponents  by  surprise ;  it  had 
not  hesitated  to  employ  every  means,  legal  and  illegal,  in  the 
prosecution  of  its  end ;  in  all  its  measures  it  had  been  power 
fully  sustained  by  the  central  government ;  and  yet,  with  all 
these  advantages,  it  had  been  utterly  defeated.  The  experi 
ment  was  absolutely  decisive;  and  it  \vsp  henceforth  certain 
that,  with  the  resources  at  present  at  the  disposal  of  the  two 
parties,  slaveholders  were  no  match  in  the  work  of  colonization 
for  the  freemen  of  the  North. 

This  was  a  serious  result  for  a  community  for  which  terri 
torial  expansion  was  a  necessity  of  prosperous  existence.  But 
the  crisis  assumed  a  still  graver  aspect  from  the  movements  of 
political  parties  to  which  the  events  in  Kansas  led.  These 
events  brought  home  to  the  Northern  people  with  irresistible 
force  the  real  aims  and  character  of  the  power  to  whose  domi 
nation  it  had  submitted.  It  was  not  simply  that  the  South  in 
Kansas  sought  to  extend  the  area  of  slavery — this  was  a  fami 
liar  fact;  it  was  that  in  prosecuting  this  object  it  had  shown 
itself  prepared  to  perpetrate  any  atrocity,  any  perfidy;  it  was 
that,  in  promoting  its  ambitions  schemes,  it  had  turned  with 
utter  unscrupulousness  those  powers  of  government,  with  which 
it  had  been  entrusted  for  the  general  good,  to  the  purpose  of crush- 
inir  the  liberties  and  taking  away  the  lives  of  those  who  dared 
to  thwart  it  A  feeling  of  profound  indignation,  mingled  with 
alarm,  pervaded  the  people  of  the  Free  States.  It  was  felt  that 
the  time  had  come  when  all  who  were  not  content  to  yield  them- 


120          FORMATION  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

selves  up  to  the  tender  mercies  of  this  unscrupulous  and  wicked 
Power  should  take  measures  for  their  safety.  A  strong  reac 
tion  set  in,  and  the  earliest  fruit  of  the  reaction  was  the  forma 
tion  of  the  Republican  party. 

The  policy  of  this  party  was  first  given  to  the  world  by  a 
manifesto  issued  in  the  summer  of  1856.  The  Republican  party, 
it  was  declared,  had  no  purpose  to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the 
states  where  it  was  already  established.  Within  those  limits  it 
had  been  recognized  by  the  Constitution,  and  to  transcend  con 
stitutional  bounds  was  no  part  of  the  Republican  programme. 
But  it  was  denied  that  the  authority  of  Congress,  or  of  any 
other  power  in  the  Union,  so  long  as  the  present  Constitution 
was  maintained,  could  give  legal  existence  to  slavery  in  any  Ter 
ritory  of  the  United  States.  The  fundamental  principle  of  the 
party* was  thus  the  non-extension  of  slavery.  Taking  its  stand  on 
this  ground,  it  invited  the  co-operation  of  all  who  were  opposed 
to  the  dominion  of  the  Slave  Power,  asking  them  to  lay  aside 
past  political  differences  and  divisions,  and  by  one  grand  effort 
to  rescue  the  country  from  the  rule  of  the  common  foe.* 

This  was  in  the  summer  of  1856.  In  the  autumn  of  the  same 
year  the  Presidential  election  gave  occasion  for  the  first  trial 
of  strength  between  the  new  party  and  its  opponents.  The  con 
test  occurred  within  a  few  months  from  the  time  when  the  first 
idea  of  a  party  on  the  basis  indicated  had  been  formed,  and 
before  its  leaders  had,  had  time  to  complete  its  organization.  As 
might  have  been  expected,  it  was  defeated,  but  under  eircum- 
sta'ices  which  inspired  the  strongest  hope  of  ultimate  victory. 
"The  Republicans," said  the  central  association  at  Washington, 
addressing  the  country  after  the  event  of  the  election,  "  wherever 
able  to  present  clearly  to  the  public  the  real  issues  of  the  canvass 
— slavery  restriction  or  slavery  extension — have  carried  the  peo 
ple  with  them  by  unprecedented  majorities,  almost  breaking 
up  in  some  States  the  organization  of  their  adversaries."  .  .  . 
"Under  circumstances  so  adverse,  they  have  triumphed  in 
eleven,  if  not  twelve  of  the  Free  States,  pre-eminent  for  enter 
prise  and  general  intelligence,  and  containing  one  half  of  the 
whole  population  of  the  country."  ....  "We  know,"  con 
tinued  this  body,  "  the  ambition,  the  necessities,  the  schemes 
of  the  Slave  Power.  The  policy  of  extension,  aggrandisement, 
and  universal  empire  is  the  law  of  its  being,  not  an  accident — 
is  settled,  not  fluctuating.  Covert  or  open,  moderate  or  ex 
treme,  according  to  circumstances,  it  never  changes  in  spirit  or 
aim."  .  .  .  .  "  The  true  course  of  the  Republican  party  is  to 

*  See  the  Republican  platform  adopted  at  Philadelphia,  June  18,  1856. 


SOUTHERN  POLICY  OF  «  THOROUGH."  121 

organize  promptly,  boldly,  and  honestly  upon  their  own  princi 
ples,  and  avoiding  coalitions  with  other  parties,  appeal  directly 
to  the  masses  of  all  parties  to  ignore  all  organizations  and 
issues  which  would  divert  the  public  mind  from  the  one  dan 
ger  that  now  threatens  the  honour  and  interests  of  the  country, 
and  tlie  stability  of  the  Union." 

The  long  ascendancy  of  the  Slave  Power  in  the  Union  was 
thus  at  length  seriously  threatened,  and  on  its  ascendancy  de 
pended  its  existence  as  a  Power.  The  leaders  of  the  South 
were  not  slow  to  appreciate  the  critical  nature  of  their  position. 
"With  a  boldness  and  practical  sense  characteristic  of  men  long 
and  successfully  conversant  with  the  affairs  of  government,  they 
looked  the  danger  in  the  face,  and,  perceiving  that  the  emer 
gency  was  one  in  which  ordinary  expedients  would  be  unavail 
ing,  they  resolved  upon  a  policy  of  "Thorough;"  and,  without 
hesitation  or  compunction,  advanced  straight  to  their  object. 

The  real  cause  of  the  defeat  of  the  South  in  the  Kansas  strug 
gle  it  was  not  difficult  to  discover.  It  lay  in  the  want  of  a 
population  adapted  to  the  purpose  in  hand — slavery  coloniza 
tion.  The  South  had  conquered  the  ground,  but,  owing  to  the 
insufficiency  of  its  slave  force,  it  had  been  unable  to  hold  it, 
and  the  result  was  its  defeat.  The  remedy,  therefore,  was  plain. 
It  would  be  necessary  to  increase  the  slave  force  of  the  South 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  put  it  on  a  par  in  point  of  disposable 
population  with  its  Northern  rival,  and,^  meantime,  pending 
the  accomplishment  of  this  result,  to  find  means  to  maintaina- 
footing  in  the  Territories  in  spite  of  the  legislation  of  the  free, 
soilers.  Such  was  the  problem  proposed  to  the  South.  No 
thing  short  of  this  would  enable  the  Slave  Power  to  keep  open 
the  Territories  for  its  future  expansion,  and  to  retain  its  hold 
on  the  Federal  Government.  Nothing  short  of  this  would' give 
it  predominance  in  the  Union.  There  was  need,  therefore,  of 
"  Thorough."  It  resolved  to  give  effect  to  this  policy  in  all  its 
fulness,  or,  failing  this,  to  dissolve  the  Union. 

"With  a  view  to  the  first  point — the  augmentation  of  the  sup 
ply  of  slave  labour — the  obvious,  and  the  only  adequate,  expe 
dient  was  the  reopening  of  the  African  Slave  Trade.  That 
trade  had  been  prohibited  by  an  act  of  Congress  in  1808,  and 
the  prohibition  had,  up  to  the  present  time,  been  acquiesced  in 
by  all  parties.  But,  like  every  other  enactment  which  stood  in 
the  way  of  the  freest  development  of  slavery,  this  prohibition 
was  now  discovered  to  be  '  unconstitutional.'  Congress  had, 
it  seemed,  exceeded  its  proper  powers  in  passing  the  act.  It 
was,  accordingly,  determined  that  an  agitation  should  forthwith 
be  set  on  foot  for  its  repeal. 


122  A  GIT  A  TION  FOE  REOPENING 

The  first  blast  of  the  trumpet  announcing  the  new  policy  was 
sounded  by  Governor  Adams  of  South  Carolina  in  his  address 
to  the  legislature  of  that  state  in  1857.  The  obnoxious  prohi 
bition  was  denounced  in  vehement  terms.  It  was  a  violation 
of  the  Constitution,  and  it  interfered  with  the  essential  interests 
of  the  South.  By  the  closing  of  the  African  slave  trade  the 
equilibrium  between  North  and  South  had  been  destroyed,  and 
this  equilibrium  could  only  be  restored  in  one  way — by  the 
re-opening  of  that  trade.  Let  this  once  be  accomplished — let 
the  South  have  free  access  to  the  only  labour  market  which  is 
suited  to  her  wants — and  she  has  no  rival  whom  she  need 
fear. 

The  key-note  having  been  struck,  the  burden  of  the  strain 
was  taken  up  by  other  speakers,  and  the  usual  machinery  of 
agitation  was  put  in  motion  through  the  South.  The  Southern 
press  freely  discussed  the  scheme.*  It  was  brought  before  the 
annual  conventions  for  the  consideration  of  Southern  affairs, 
and  received  the  energetic  support  of  the  leaders  of  the  extreme 
Southern  party. f  At  one  of  these  conventions  held  at  Vicks- 


*  The  Charleston  Standard,  complaining  that  the  position  of  the  South  had 
hitherto  been  too  much  one  of  defence  and  apology,  adds,  "  To  the  end  of  changing 
our  attitude  in  the  contest,  and  of  planting  our  standard  right  in  the  very  faces  of 
our  adversaries,  we  propose,  as  a  leading  principle  of  Southern  policy,  to  reopen  and 
legitimate  the  slave  trade/'  And  it  then  proceeds,  in  a  series  of  articles,  to  argue 
at  length  the  rightfulness'and  expediency  of  this  measure,  expanding  and  elabo 
rately  enforcing  the  following  propositions,  viz. : — "  That  equality  of  states  is  neces 
sary  to  equality  of  power  in  the  Senate  of  the  Union  ;  that  equality  of  population 
is  necessary  to  equality  of  power  in  the  House  of  Representatives ;  that  we  cannot 
expand  our  labour  into  the  Territories  without  decreasing  it  in  the  States,  and  what 
is  gained  upon  the  frontier  is  lost  at  the  centres  of  the  institution ;  that  pauper 
white  labour  will  not  come  into  competition  with  our  slaves,  and,  if  it  did,  that  it 
would  not  increase  the  integrity  and  strength  of  slavery,  and  that,  therefore,  to  the 
equality  of  influence  in  the  Federal  legislature  there  is  a  necessity  for  the  slave 
trade." 

f  Mr.  Yancey  has  denied  this  in  a  letter  to  the  Daily  News,  and  declared  that  he 
"  does  not  know  two  public  men  in  the  South,  of  any  note,  who  ever"  advocated 
the  restoration  of  the  trade,  and  that  "  the  people  there  are  and  have  been  almost 
unanimously  opposed  to  it."  It  is  unnecessary  to  reopen  a  question  which  has 
been  ^disposed  of,  and  I  therefore  refer  the  reader,  who  wishes  to  ascertain  the 
authenticity  of  Mr.  Yancey's  statement,  to  the  Daily  News  of  the  27th  and  28th 
January,  1862.  One  or  two  specimens,  however,  may  be  given  of  the  views  oi 
Southern  politicians  upon  this  subject.  The  Hon.  L.  W.  Spratt  of  Georgia,  in  a 
speech  at  Savannah  in  favour  of  the  African  slave  trade,  thus  expressed  himself:  — 
"  The  first  reason  for  its  revival  is,  it  will  give  political  power  to  the  South.  Im 
ported  slaves  will  increase  our  representation  in  the  national  legislature.  More 
slaves  will  give  us  more  states ;  and  it  is,  therefore,  within  the  power  of  the  rude 
untutored  savages  we  bring  from  Africa  to  restore  to  the  South  the  influence  she  has 
lost  by  the  suppression  of  the  trade.  We  want  only  that  kind  of  population  which 
will  extend  and  secure  our  peculiar  institutions,  and  there  is  no  other  source  but 
Africa." 


THE  AFRICAN  SLA  VE  TRADE.  123 

burgh,  Mississippi,  in  May,  1859,  a  vote  in  favour  of  the  reopen 
ing  of  the  trade  was  passed  by  a  large  majority  ;  and  this  was  fol 
lowed  up  by  the  formation  of  an  u  African  Labour  Supply 
Association,"  of  which  Mr.  De  Bow,  the  editor  of  the  leading 
Southern  review,  was  the  president.  In  Alabama,  a  "  League 
of  United  Southerners"  issued  a  manifesto  in  which  the  Federal 
prohibition  of  the  foreign  slave  trade  is  denounced  as  an  un 
worthy  concession  to  the  demands  of  Northern  fanaticism,  and 
wThich  insists  on  "  the  necessity  of  sustaining  slavery,  not  only 
where  its  existence  is  put  directly  in  issno,  but  where  it  is  re 
motely  concerned."  In  Arkansas  and  Louisiana  the  snl ject 
was  brought  before  the  state  legislatures.  A  motion  brought 
forward  in  the  Senate  of  the  former  state,  condemnatory  of  the 
agitation  for  the  revival  of  the  African  slave  trade,  was  defeat 
ed  by  a  majority  of  twenty-two.  In  the  latter  a  Bill  embody 
ing  the  views  of  the  advocates  of  the  trade  was  passed  success 
fully  through  the  Lower  House,  and  only  by  a  narrow  majority 
lost  in  the  Senate.  In  Georgia  the  executive  committee  of  an 
agricultural  society  offered  "a  premium  of  twenty-five  dollars 
for  the  best  specimen  of  a  live  African  imported  within  the 
last  twelve  months,  to  be  exhibited  at  the  next  meeting  of  the 
society."  Nor  was  the  principle  of  competition  confined  to  the 
show  yard.  Southern  notions  would  have  been  shocked  if  so 
solemn  a  work  had  missed  the  benediction  of  the  church.  Ac 
cordingly,  it  was  proposed  in  the  True  Southern,  a  Mississippi 
paper,  to  stimulate  the  zeal  of  the  pulpit  by  founding  a  prize 
for  the  best  sermon  in  favour  of  free  trade  in  human  fiesh. 
Meanwhile  those  who  were  immediately  interested  in  the 


Mr.  A.  H.  Stephens,  the  present  Vice-president  of  the  Southern  Confederation, 
has  thus  pointedly  put  the  argument  for  the  opening  of  the  trade : — "  We  can  divide 
Texas  into  five  slave  states,  and  get  Chihuahua,  Sonora,  &c.,  if  we  have  the  slave 
population,  and  it  is  plain  that  unless  the  number  of  African  stock  be  increased,  we 
have  not  the  population,  and  might  as  well  abandon  the  race  with  our  brethren  of 
the  Xorth  in  the  colonization  of  the  Territories.  .  .  .  slave  states  cannot  be  made 
without  Africans.  I  am  not  telling  you  to  do  it,  but  it  is  a  serious  question  concern 
ing  our  political  and  domestic  policy ;  and  it  is  useless  to  wage  war  about  abstract 
rights,  or  to  quarrel  and  accuse  each  other  of  unsoundness,  unless  we  get  more- 
Africans Negro  slavery  is  but  in  its  infancy." 

And  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis,  while  declaring  his  disapprobation  of  opening  the  trade 
in  Mississippi,  earnestly  disclaimed  "any  coincidence  of  opinion  with  those  who 
prate  of  the  inhumanity  and  sinfulness  of  the  trade.  The  interest  of  Mississippi, 
not  of  the  African,"  he  said,  "dictates  my  conclusion.  Her  arm  is,  no  doubt, 
strengthened  by  the  presence  of  a  due  proportion  of  the  servile  caste,  but  it  might 
be  paralyzed  by  such  an  influx  as  would  probably  follow  if  the  gates  of  the  African 
slave-market  were  thrown  open."  ..."  This  conclusion,  in  relation  to  Mississippi, 
is  based  upon  my  view  of  her  present  condition,  not  upon  any  general  theory.  It  is 
not  supposed  to  be  applicable  to  Texas,  to  New  Mexico,  or  to  any  future  acquisition  to 
le  made  south  of  the  Rio  Grande" 


124  PERVERSION  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION. 

question  had  taken  the  law  into  their  own  hands,  and  the  trade 
in  slaves  with  Africa  was  actually  commenced  on  a  large  scale. 
Throughout  the  years  1859  and  1860  fleets  of  slavers  arrived 
at  Southern  ports,  and,  with  little  interference  from  the  Federal 
Government,*  succeeded  in  landing  their  cargoes.  The  traffic 
was  carried  on  with  scarcely  an  attempt  at  concealment.  An 
nouncements  of  the  arrival  of  cargoes  of  Africans,  and  adver 
tisements  of  their  sale,  appeared  openly  in  the  Southern  papers; 
and  depots  of  newly  imported  "savages"  were  established 
in  the  principal  towns  of  the  South.  "I  have  had  ample 
evidences  of  the  fact,"  said  Mr.  Underwood,  a  gentleman  of 
known  respectability,  in  a  letter  to  the  New  York  Tribune, 
"that  the  reopening  of. tho  African  slave  trade  is  already  a 
thing  commenced,  and  the  traffic  is  brisk  and  rapidly  increas 
ing.  Infa9t,  the  most  vital  question  of  the  day  is  not  the  open 
ing  of  the  trade,  but  its  suppression.  The  arrival  of  cargoes 
of  negroes,  fresh  from  Africa,  in  our  Southern  ports  is  an  event 
of  frequent  occurrence. "f 

One-half  of  the  policy  of  u  Thorough"  was  thus  fairly  inau 
gurated.  But  the  process  of  augmenting  a  population  is  slow  ; 
and,  even  on  the  supposition  that  the  Federal  prohibition  of  the 
external  slave  trade  were  removed,  some  years  would  elapse 
before  the  South  could  hope  to  renew,  with  any  prospect  of 
success,  the  colonization  struggle  with  the  freesoilers.  During 
the  interval  the  movements  of  the  North  must  by  some  means 
be  held  in  check ;  the  Territories  must  be  kept  open.  It  was 
necessary,  therefore,  to  devise  a  principle  of  policy  on  which 
the  party  could  act  together  with  a  view  to  this  end  :  and  for 
this  purpose  the  South,  according  to  its  custom  in  similar  emer 
gencies,  had  recourse  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 
True,  the  whole  tenour  of  the  Constitution  ran  in  an  opposite 
direction.  But  the  leaders  of  the  party  did  not  despair. 
Though  they  might  not  find  their  favourite  principle,  ttotideifa 
verbis,  in  the  Constitution,  nor  yet,  perhaps,  totidem  syllabis, 
"  they  dared  engage,"  like  the  book-learned  brother  in  a  like 
difficulty,  "  they  should  make  it  out  tertio  modo  or  totidem 
literis."\ 

It  was  beyond  question  that  the  Constitution  had  recognized 
the  right  of  property  in  human  beings.  This  could  nut  be 

*  Not,  however,  it  would  seem,  without  interruption  from  the  English  cruisers. 
A  correspondent  of  the  New  York  Journal  of  Commerce,  writing  from  the  coast  of 
Africa,  mentions  the  capture  of  no  less  than  twenty-two  vessels  as  having  been 
effected  by  English  cruisers  in  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1857.  "All  but  one 
were  American,  and  the  larger  number  belonged  to  New  York." 

f  Annual  Reports  of  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society,  1857-8,  1858-9,  1859-60. 

J  Tak  of  a  Tub. 


EQUAL  RECOGNITION  OF  SLAVERY  CLAIMED.        125 

denied,  and  this  was  a  sufficient  basis  for  the  policy  of  the  South. 
The  recognition,  it  is  true,  was  partial  and  local,  so  admittedly 
so,  that,  even  under  the  rule  of  the  Slave  party,  the  whole 
course  of  law  and  government  bad  proceeded  upon  this  assump 
tion.  The  latest  enactment,  for  example,  bearing  upon  the 
question  was  the  Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill.  This  measure  had 
been  brought  forward  by  a  Democratic  member  acting  in  con- 

O  *r  <  o 

cert  with  the  whole  South,  and  had  been  carried  against  a 
vehement  Northern  opposition.  Yet  even  this  measure  did  not 
assume  an  equality  between  slavery  and  freedom  under  the 
Constitution;  for,  while  it  left  it  open  to  the  inhabitants  of  a 
Territory  to  prohibit  slave  labour  therein,  it  permitted  no  cor 
responding  prohibition  to  be  directed  against  free  labour; 
while  it  refused  to  recognize  property  in  slaves  under  certain 
circumstances,  and  left  such  property  unprotected  by  law,  it 
contemplated  no  occasion  on  which  other  kinds  of  property 
should  not  receive  recognition  and  protection.  The  very  ex 
pression,  "  peculiar  institution,"  showed  the  light  in  which 
slavery  was  popularly  regarded.  But  the  Slave  parry  had  now 
resolved  neither  to  see  nor  to  admit  any  of  these  qualifying 
considerations.  It  took  its  stand  on  the  principle  that  the  Con 
stitution  recognized  the  right  of  property  in  man  ;  and,  refusing 
to  acknowledge  anything  which  did  not  harmonize  with  this,  it 
reasoned  with  ruthless  consistency  to  the  conclusion  that.  Con 
gress,  which  was  the  organ  of  the  Constitution,  was  bound  to 
protect  this  property  in  whatever  part  of  trie  Union  it  might  be 
found.  The  doctrine  of  "squatter  sovereignty,"  which  left  it 
open  to  the  inhabitants  of  a  district  to  decide  for  or  against 
slavery — albeit  a  doctrine  fabricated  to  order,  with  a  view  to 
meet  the  special  exigencies  of  the  Slave  power — was  therefore 
denounced  as  no  less  unconstitutional  than  the  Missouri  Com 
promise,  as  no  less  dangerous  than  the  "VVilmot  Proviso.  It  was 
not  for  the  people  of  a  territory  to  say  what  property  was  to  be 
protected,  and  what  to  be  left  without  protection  ;  but  it  was 
for  Congress,  to  which  it  belonged  to  give  effect  to  the  Consti 
tution  over  the  whole  Union,  to  protect  all  property  without 
distinction,  whatever  might  be  its  nature,  and  in  whatever  part 
of  the  Union  it  might  be  placed — whether  consisting  of  human 
or  of  other  chattels,  whether  existing  in  the  States  or  in  the 
Territories,  in  the  Slave  States  or  in  the  Free. 

Such  was  the  daring  doctrine  advanced  by  the  leaders  of  the 
South  in  the  critical  position  of  their  affairs  at  which  they  had 
now  arrived.  To  make  good  their  ground,  they  had  need  of 
two  things ;  first,  a  judicial  decision  by  the  highest  Federal 
authority  in  their  favour ;  and  secondly,  a  government  at 


126  DEED  SCOTT  CASE. 

"Washington  prepared  to  supply  the  necessary  administrative 
machinery  for  giving  full  effect  to  this  decision.     The  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  is  the  tribunal  of  ultimate  appeal 
in  constitutional  questions.     This  court  had  for  a  long  series  of 
years  been  composed  of  the  most  eminent  lawyers  of  the  Re 
public,  and  had  maintained  a  high  character  for  learning  and 
wisdom,  as  well   as  for  the  spirit  of  enlightened  impartiality 
with  which  it  discharged  its  high   functions.     But  this  court 
was  now  destined  to  suffer  from  the  same  causes  which   had 
affected  injuriously  so  many  other  institutions  of  the  Union. 
The  judges  of  the  Federal  courts  were  appointed  by  the  Presi 
dent  and  approved  by   the  Senate.     In  the  Senate  the  Slave 
party  was  predominant,  and  it  had  hitherto  been  able  to  nomi 
nate  the  President.     It  had,  therefore,  the  appointments  to  the 
national  judicatory   in   its  own   hands;  and  for  some  years — 
foreseeing  that  in  the  controversies  which  were  pending  it  would 
be  of  importance  to  have  the  judicial  bench  on  its  side — it  had 
been   silently  shaping  to  its  purposes  this  great  organ  of  the 
nation's  power.     With  such  success  had  the  process  been  car 
ried  on,  that  in  1855,  although  the  North  had  always  furnished 
by  far  the  greatest  share  of  legal  talent  and  learning  to  the  bar 
of  the   Union,  out  of  the   nine  judges  who  constituted  the  Su 
preme  Court  of  the  United  States,  five  were  Southern  men  and 
slaveholders,  and  the  rest,  though  not  natives  of  the,  South, 
were  known  to  be  in  their  sympathies  strongly  Southern.     The 
tribunal  of  ultimate  'appeal  in  the  Union  was  thus  brought  to 
a   condition   which   commended  it  to  the   confidence  of  the 
"  thorough  "  politicians,*  and  before  the  court  so  constituted  a 
case  was  submitted  for  judgment,  involving  the  principle  which 
it  was  desired  to  establish.     This  was  the  celebrated  Dred 
Scott  case.     The  facts  of  it  are  sufficiently  simple.     A  slave  of 


*  The  following,  which  occurs  in  the  judgment  of  Chief  Justice  Taney  in  the 
Dred  Scott  case,  will  give  the  reader  an  idea  of  the  spirit  with  which  the  court 
was  animated.  The  question  before  the  court  was  whether  coloured  persons  are 
legally  citizens  of  the  United  States.  Chancellor  Kent  had  laid  it  down  in  his 
Commentaries,  that  "  it  is  certain  that  the  Constitution  and  statute  law  of  New 
York  speak  of  men  of  colour  as  being  citizens ;  "  and  that  "  if  a  slave  be  born  in 
the  United  States,  and  lawfully  discharged  from  bondage,  or  if  a  black  man  be  born 
free  in  the  United  States,  he  becomes  thenceforth  a  citizen."  But  Chief  Justice 
Taney  contended  that  coloured  persons  were  incapable  of  enjoying  this  privilege. 
"  Such  persons,"  he  said,  "  had  been  regarded  as  unfit  to  associate  with  the  white 
race,  either  in  social  or  political  relations,  and  so  far  inferior  that  they  had  no  rights 
which  the  white  man  was  bound  to  respect,  and  that  the  negro  might  justly  and 
lawfully  be  reduced  to  slavery  for  his  benefit ;  that  this  opinion  was,  at  that  time, 
fixed  and  universal  in  the  civilized  portion  of  the  white  race,  and  was  regarded  as 
an  axiom  in  morals  as  well  as  politics,  which  no  one  thought  of  disputing,  or  sup 
posed  to  be  open  to  dispute" 


EFFECT  OF  THE  DECISION.  127 

the  name  of  Dred  Scott  had  been  carried  by  his  master  from 
Missouri,  his  native  state,  first  to  Illinois,  a  free  state,  mid  sub 
sequently  to  the  United  States  territory  north  of  Missouri, 
which,  under  the  Missouri  Compromise,  was  free  territory.  On 
being  brought  back  to  Missouri,  the  slave  claimed  his  freedom 
on  the  ground  that  his  removal  by  his  master  to  a  free  state 
and  territory  had  emancipated  him  ;  and  that,  once  free,  he 
could  not  be  enslaved  by  being  brought  again  into  a  slave  state. 
This  demand  was  strictly  in  accordance  with  the  prevailing 
course  of  decisions  over  the  whole  South  up  to  that  time  ;  and 
was  thus,  in  conformity  with  precedent,  conceded  by  the  state 
court  of  Missouri,  before  which  it  was  in  the  first  instance 
brought.  But  the  defendant  appealed  against  this  decision, 
and  the  case  carne  on  under  a  writ  of  error  first  before  the  Su 
preme  Court  of  the  State,  and  ultimately,  having  in  the  inter 
val  passed  through  one  of  the  circuit  Federal  courts,  before  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  Union.  The  result  was  the  reversal  by 
a  majority  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  judgment  of  the  court 
below.  In  announcing  the  decision,  Chief  Justice  Taney,  who 
delivered  judgment,  laid  down  two  principles  which  went  the 
full  length  of  the  views  of  the  Slave  party.  He  declared,  first, 
that  in  contemplation  of  law  there  was  no  difference  between 
a  slave  and  any  other  kind  of  property  ;  and  secondly,  that  all 
American  citizens  might  settle  with  their  property  in  any  part 
of  the  Union  in  which  they  pleased.  -*u  < 

Such  was  the  momentous  decision  in  the  Dred  Scott  case. 
Its  effect  was  to  reverse  the  fundamental  assumption  upon 
which  up  to  that  time  society  in  the  Union  had  been  based  ; 
and,  whereas  formerly  freedom  had  been  regarded  as  the  rule 
and  slavery  the  exception,  to  make  slavery  in  future  the  rule 
of  the  Constitution.  According  to  the  law,  as  expounded  by 
the  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court,  it  was  now  competent 
to  a  slaveholder  to  carry  his  slaves  not  merely  into  any  portion 
of  the  Territories,  but,  if  it  pleased  him,  into  any  of  the  Free 
States,  to  establish  himself  with  his  slave  retinue  in  Ohio  or 
Massachusetts,  in  Pennsylvania  or  New  York,  and  to  hold  his 
slaves  in  bondage  there,  the  regulations  of  Congress  or  the  laws 
of  the  particular  state  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.  The 
Union,  if  this  doctrine  were  to  be  accepted,  was  henceforth  a 
single  slaveholding  domain,  in  every  part  of  which  property  in 
human  beings  was  equally  sacred.  So  sweeping  were  the  con 
sequences  involved  in  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  Reading  that 
decision  in  the  light  of  subsequent  events,  we  cannot  but 
admire  the  sagacious  foresight  of  De  Tocqneville : — "  The 
President  who  exercises  a  limited  power  may  err  without  caus- 


128        SECOND  REQUIREMENT  OF  THE  SLAVE  POWER. 

ing  great  mischief  in  the  state.  Congress  may  decide  amiss 
without  destroying  the  Union,  because  the  electoral  body  in 
which  Congress  originates  may  cause  it  to  retract  its  decision  by 
changing  its  members.  But  if  the  Supreme  Court  is  ever  com 
posed  of  imprudent  men  or  bad  citizens,  the  Union  may  be 
plunged  into  anarchy  or  civil  war." 

The  Slave  Power  had  thus  accomplished  its  first  object.  The 
Constitution  had  been  turned  against  itself,  and,  by  an  ingenious 
application  of  the  u  totidem  literis"  principle  of  interpretation, 
the  right  to  extend  slavery  over  the  whole  area  of  the  Union 
was  declared  by  the  highest  tribunal  in  the  republic  to  be  good 
in  constitutional  law.  But  it  was  further  necessary  to  give 
practical  effect  to  this  decision;  and  this  could  only  be 
accomplished  through  a  government  at  Washington  favourable 
to  the  principle  it  embodied.  It  was  therefore  resolved  that,  in 
the  approaching  Presidential  election,  the  party  of  the  South 
should  be  reconstructed  on  the  basis  of  this  principle  in  its 
application  to  the  Territories  (for  it  was  thought  prudent  for 
the  present  to  abstain  from  extending  the  new  doctrine  to  the 
Free  States).  This  policy  was,  however,  in  the  last  degree 
hazardous.  The  South  had  hitherto  carried  its  measures 
through  an  alliance  with  the  Democratic  party  of  the  North ; 
but  tliis  party  was  now  led  by  Mr.  Douglas,  and  Mr.  Douglas 
was  the  author  of  the  Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill,  the  repeal  of 
which  was  for  the  moment  the  main  object  of  the  South.  Mr. 
Douglas  was,  therefore,  plainly  told  that  he  must  recant  his 
former  principles — principles  which,  at  the  cost  of  much  loss  of 
credit  among  his  Northern  friends,  he  had  devised  expressly  for 
the  benefit  of  the  Slave  Power — and  that  he  must  make  up  his 
mind  to  uphold  slavery  in  the  Territories  in  spite  of  anti-slavery 
decisions  by  the  squatter  sovereignty,  or  forfeit  the  support  of  the 
South.  Now  this  was  a  length  to  which  Mr.  Douglas  and  the 
section  which  he  led — highly  as  they  prized  the  Southern  alli 
ance,  and  indulgently  and  perhaps  approvingly  as  they 
regarded  the  institution  of  slavery — were  not  prepared  to  go.* 


*  Yet  every  point  was  strained  to  meet  the  views  of  the  South.  The  distinction 
between  the  programmes  of  the  two  sections  as  they  were  ultimately  amended,  is  so 
fine  that  it  may  easily  escape  the  inattentive  reader.  The  essence  of  the  demand  of 
the  extreme  (Breckenridge)  section  was  contained  in  the  second  of  the  amendments 
made  in  the  Cincinnati  platform  ;  which  was  to  the  effect  "That  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
Federal  government,  in  all  its  departments,  to  protect  when  necessary  the  right  of 
persons  and  property  in  the  Territories,  and  wherever  else  its  constitutional  authority 
extends ;"  while  the  Douglas  party  embodied  in  its  amendments  the  principle  of  the 
Dred  Scott  decision.  Theoretically,  the  positions  were  identical,  but  practically  they 
involved  an  important  difference.  The  Douglas  programme,  although  acknowledg 
ing  the  right  of  slave  property  to  protection  in  the  Territories,  gave  to  the  slave- 


APOLOGY  FOR  SOUTHERN  AGGRESSION.  129 

Mr.  Douglas  was,  therefore,  cast  aside.  The  combined  phdanx 
which  had  so  long  ruled  the  Union  was  broken  in  two,  and  the 
Slave  Power  stood  alone.  This  position  of  affairs  could  only 
lead  to  one  result — that  which  actually  occurred — the  triumph 
by  a  large  majority  of  the  Republican  party.  The  South  hav 
ing  thus  failed  to  make  good  the  one  alternative  of  its 
i  thorough '  policy,  at  once  accepted  the  other  ;  and  the  disso 
lution  of  the  Union  was  proclaimed. 

Such  has  been  the  career  of  aggression  pursued  by  the  Slave 
Power  in  North  America  for  the  last  fifty  years.  It  forms,  as 
it  seems  to  me,  one  of  the  most  striking  and  alarming  episodes 
in  modern  history,  and  furnishes  a  remarkable  example  of  what 
a  small  body  of  men  may  effect  against  the  most  vital  interests 
of  human  society,  when,  thoroughly  understanding  their  posi 
tion  and  its  requirements,  they  devote  themselves  deliberately, 
resolutely,  and  unscrupulously  to  the  accomplishment  of  their 
ends.  It  has  indeed  been  contended  that  "  the  action  of  the 
South  on  this  subject  [the  extension  of  slavery],  though  in 
appearance  aggressive,  has  in  reality  been  in  self-defence,  as  a 
means  of  maintaining  its  political  status  against  the  growth  of 
the  North."*  And  in  one  sense  this  is  true,  though  by  no, 
means  in  the  sense  in  which  the  author  of  this  argument  would 
have  us  believe  it.  What  is  suggested  is,  that  the  political 
ascendancy  of  the  South  has  been  necessary  to  prevent  its 
being  sacrificed  to  the  selfish  ends  of  the  Northern  majority; 
and  that  it  has  been  with  a  view  to  this  object — security  against 
Northern  rapacity — and  not  at  all  on  its  own  account,  that  the 
extension  of  slavery  has  been  sought.  The  policy  of  slavery 
extension  by  the  South  is  thus  represented  as  but  a  means  to 
an  end — that  end  being  the  legitimate  development  of  its  own 
resources.  Such  is  the  theory.  One  more  strikingly  at  vari 
ance  with  the  most  conspicuous  facts  of  the  case  it  would  per 
haps  be  difficult  to  imagine.  The  extension  of  slavery  sought 
as  a  means  to  an  end!  and  that  end  free  trade,  fiscal  equality, 
and  the  internal  development  of  the  Southern  States  !  Why, 
if  these  were  the  real  objects  of  the  South,  where  was  the 
need,  and  what  was  the  meaning,  of  secession  ?  They  were  all 
secured  to  it  by  the  Cincinnati  platform ;  they  had  all  been 


holders  no  other  guarantee  th«i  a  resort  to  the  ordinary  tribunals;  whereas  the 
assertion  in  the  Breckenridge  programme  of  the  duty  of  the  Federal  government,  "in 
all  its  departments,  to  protect "  slavery,  was  understood  to  imply  the  necessity  of 
drawing  up  a  black  code  for  use  in  the  Territories.  "There  must,'*  says  the  Rich 
mond  Enquirer,  "  be  positive  legislation.  A  civil  and  criminal  code  for  the  protec 
tion  of  slave  property  in  the  Territories  aught  to  be  provided." 
*  Spence's  American  Union,  p.  107. 

9 


130  IN  WHAT  SENSE  DEFENSIVE. 

advocated  by  Mr.  Douglas.  Why  then  reject  the  Democratic 
manifesto  and  the  Democratic  candidate,  and  break  with  the 
Democratic  party — if  this  was  all  that  was  sought?  Were 
state  rights  threatened  by  the  Cincinnati  platform  ?  Was  Mr. 
Douglas  a  protectionist  ?  Yet  if  the  South  had  not  broken 
with  this  party — a  party  whose  motto  was  state  rights  and  free 
trade,  a  party  which  regarded  slavery  with  something  more 
than  indulgence — the  Democratic  organization  might  never 
have  been  shaken,  and  the  South  might  still  have  been  in  pos 
session  of  the  Federal  Government.  "  But  why  discuss  on 
probable  evidence  notorious  facts  ?  The  world  knows  what  the 
question  between  the  North  and  South  has  been  for  many 
years,  and  still  is.  Slavery  alone  was  thought  of,  alone  talked 
of.  Slavery  was  battled  for  and  against,  on  the  floor  of  Con 
gress  and  in  the  plains  of  Kansas;  on  the  slavery  question 
exclusively  was  the  party  constituted  which  now  rules  the 
United  States ;  on  slavery  Fremont  was  rejected,  on  slavery 
Lincoln  was  elected  ;  the  South  separated  on  slavery,  and  pro 
claimed  slavery  as  the  one  cause  of  separation."* 

But,  though  not  true  in  the  sense  suggested  by  the  English 
champions  of  the  Southern  cause,  there  is  a  sense  in  which  it 
is  strictly  true  that  the  aggressions  of  the  Slave  Power  have 
been  defensive  movements.  This  is  indeed  the  essence  of  the 
ease  which  I  have  endeavoured  to  establish.  For  I  have  en 
deavoured  to  show<rhat,  while  the  economic  necessities  of  the 
South  require  a  constant  extension  of  the  area  of  its  dominion, 
and  Wihile  its  moral  necessities  require  no  less  urgently  a  field 
for  its  political  ambition,  it  is  yet,  from  the  peculiarity  of  its 
social  structure,  incapable  of  amalgamating  with  societies  of  a 
different  type,  and  has  no  objects  which  it  can  pursue  with 
them  in  common  ;  and  that,  consequently,  it  can  only  attain  its 
ends  at  their  expense.  It  must  advance;  it  cannot  mix  with 
free  societies ;  and,  where  these  meet  it  in  the  same  field,  it 
must  push  them  from  its  path.  In  this  sense  it  must  be  allowed 
that  the  aggressive  movements  of  the  South  have  been  but 
.efforts  prompted  by  the  instincts  of  self-defence  ;  but  whether 
the  fact,  when  thus  understood,  is  likely  to  help  the  argument 
of  those  who  employ  it,  it  is  for  them  to  consider.  It  is  sug 
gested,  indeed,  that  this  necessity  of  aggression  arises  from  the 
relative  inferiority  of  the  South  in  wealth  and  numbers — that 
its  encroachments  are  but  "  means  of  maintaining  its  political 
status  against  the  growth  of  the  North."  But  in  all  political 
confederacies  particular  members  or  groups  of  members  must 
be  inferior  to  other  members  or  groups,  or  to  the  rest  combined, 

*  Mr.  Mill  in  Fraser^s  Magazine  fpr  February,  1862. 


ATTEMPT  OF  JOHN  BRO  WX.  131 

and  if  this  were  a  reason  for  political  separation,  there  could 
be  no  such  thing  as  political  union.  The  Southern  States  are 
not  more  inferior  in  wealth  and  numbers  to  the  Northern  than 
is  Ireland  to  Great  Britain,  or  Scotland  to  England  and  Ireland; 
yet  neither  Ireland  nor  Scotland  is  compelled  in  self-defence  to 
pursue  towards  the  more  powerful  confederation  of  which  they 
severally  form  a  part,  a  policy  of  aggression.  Why  should  it  he 
different  with  the  Southern  States  of  the  Union  ?  Let  the 
champions  of  the  South  address  themselves  to  this  problem, 
and  if  they  can  solve  it  without  being  brought  at  last  to  slavery 
as  the  ultimate  cause  of  all  other  dissensions — the  one  incom 
patibility  in  the  case — they  will  show  more  ingenuity  than  they 
have  even  yet  displayed.  I  venture  to  suggest  that  solution 
which  has  been  foreshadowed  by  De  Tocqueville,  and  which  is 
at  once  the  most  ohvious  and  the  most  profound.  The  South 
has  been  compelled  to  pursue  a  policy  of  aggression  towards 
the  North,  not  because  it  is  less  rich  or  less  populous,  but 
because  it  is  different,  and  all  the  differences  which  divide 
North  and  South  have  originated  in  slavery — in  an  institution 
which  prevents  the  growth  of  interests,  ideas,  and  aims  in 
which  free  societies  can  share,  and  which  can  prosper  only  by 
perpetually  encroaching  on  their  sphere.* 

*  Some  explanation,  perhaps,  is  needed  why  in  the  foregoing  sketch  no  mention 
has  been  made  of  one  of  the  most  signal  and  devoted  wts  of  heroism  in  modern 
times — the  attempt  of  John  Brown  to  open  a  guerillfcrjrarfare  against  slavery  in 
Virginia.  The  omission  has  been  made  designedly.  The  enterprise,  however  wor 
thy  of  being  recorded,  having  yet  originated  exclusively  in  the  noble  heart  of  the 
man  who  conducted  it,  and  having  been  carried  into  operation  without  the  conni 
vance  of  any  considerable  party  in  the  United  States,  could  not  properly  be  included 
in  a  sketch  of  which  the  object  was  to  trace  the  workings  of  those  parties.  The 
effort  stood  apart  from  the  combination  of  agencies  which  were  working  towards 
the  same  end ;  yet  it  would  not  be  correct  to  say  that  it  was  without  influence  on 
the  cause  which  it  was  designed  to  serve.  Its  connexion  with  the  history  of  the 
movement  appears  to  have  been  this.  The  alarm  which  the  attempt  created  in  the 
South  had  the  effect  of  strengthening  the  influence  of  the  extreme  party  there,  and 
of  transferring  the  conduct  of  affairs  in  the  Slave  States  from  such  men  as  Ham 
mond  and  Hunter,  Wise  and  Clingham,  to  such  men  as  Jefferson  Davis,  Stephens 
and  Yancey — from  the  representatives  of  the  Border  to  those  of  the  Cotton  States. 
(See  Annuaire  des  Deux  Mondts,  1860,  pp.  553-555.)  It  can  scarcely  be  doubted 
that  this  hastened  the  split  in  the  Democratic  party,  and  thereby  the  triumph  of  the 
Republicans.  In  this  manner  the  enterprise  of  John  Brown  conduced  directly  to 
the  present  crisis,  and,  through  this,  we  may  now  with  some  confidence  assert,  to 
the  downfall  of  the  great  crime  against  which  he  had  sworn  undying  enmity.  The 
reflection  will  be  welcome  to  those  who  would  deplore  that  an  act  of  such  serene 
self-devotion  should  be  performed  in  vain. 

"  Actions  of  the  just 
Smell  sweet  in  death,  and  blossom  in  the  dust." 

The  reader  who  desires  to  see  a  faithful  and  spirited  sketch  of  this  worthy  repre 
sentative  of  the  sturdy  virtue  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  is  referred  to  the  Life  and  Let 
ters  of  Captain  John  Brown,  edited  by  Richard  D.  Webb.  London :  Smith,  Elder 
and  Co.  1861. 


132          ESSENTIAL  CHARACTER  01  SLAVE  SOCIETY 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE    DESIGNS    OF    THE    SLAVE   POWEE. 

WE  have  traced  in  the  foregoing  chapter  the  career  of  the 
Slave  Power.  In  the  present  it  is  proposed  to  consider  its 
probable  designs.  This,  indeed,  might  well  seem  to  be  a 
superfluous  inquiry ;  since,  if  we  have  correctly  appreciated 
the  past  history  of  that  Power,  and  the  motives  which  have 
carried  it  to  its  present  perilous  attempt,  we  shall  not  easily  err 
as  to  the  objects  which  it  would  pursue  in  the  event  of  that 
attempt  being  successful.  Combinations  of  men  do  not  in  a 
moment  change  their  character  and  aims;  of  all  combinations 
aristocracies  are  the  most  persistent  in  their  plans;  and  of  all 
aristocracies  an  aristocracy  of  slaveholders  is  that  the  range  of 
whose  ideas  is  most  limited,  and  whose  career,  therefore,  is  least 
susceptible  of  sudden  deviation  from  the  path  which  it  has  long 
followed. 

Nevertheless,  it  \vill  not  be  expedient  to  take  for  granted 
what  would  seem  to  be  in  such  little  need  of  proof;  for  there 
are  those  who  tell  us  that  this  party,  whose  whole  history  has 
been  a  record  of  BinCSbssful  aggression  and  of  pretensions  rising 
with  each  success,  has  engaged  in  this  last  grand  effort  from 
motives  the  reverse  of  those  which  have  hitherto  notoriously 
inspired  it;  and  who  would  have  us  believe  that  the  Slave 
Power,  which  in  the  space  of  half  a  century  has  pushed  its 
boundary  from  the  foot  of  the  Alleghanies  to  the  borders  of 
iNew  Mexico,  and  which,  from  the  position  of  an  exceptional 
principle  claiming  a  local  toleration,  has  reached  the  audacity 
of  aspiring  to  embrace  the  whole  commonwealth  in  its  domain 
— that  this  Power  has  suddenly  changed  its  nature/and,  in  now 
seeking  to  secede  from  the  Union,  aims  at  nothing  more  than 
simple  independence — the  privilege  of  being  allowed  to  work 
out  its  own  destiny  in  its  own  way. 

This  assumption,  indeed,  however  paradoxical  to  those  who 
are  familiar  with  the  exploits  of  the  Southern  party,  underlies- 
most  of  the  speculation  which  has  been  current  in  this  country 
upon  the  probable  consequences  of  a  severance  of  the  Union, 
and  is  that  which  has  procured  for  the  cause  of  secession  the 
degree  of  countenance  which  it  has  enjoyed.  It  will  therefore 
be  desirable  to  consider  how  far  the  basis  of  the  assumption  is 
warranted — how  far  the  altered  position  of  the  South — snppos- 


UNCHANGED  BY  INDEPENDENCE.  133 

ing  it  to  make  its  ground  good  in  the  present  struggle — is  calcu 
lated  to  affect  the  character  which  it  has  hitherto  sustained,  and 
to  convert  an  unscrupulous  and  ambitious  faction  into  the  mo 
derate  rulers  of  an  inoffensive  state. 

And  here  we  must  advert  to  principles  already  established. 
We  have  seen  the  causes  which  have  made  the  Slave  Power 
what  it  is : — in  its  new  position  which  of  these  causes  will  cease 
to  operate?  Slavery  is  to  remain  the  "corner  stone"  of  the 
republic  more  firmly  jset  than  ever.  The  economic  and  moral 
attributes  of  the  South  will  therefore  continue  to  be  such  as 
slavery  must  make  them.  Cultivation  will  be  carried  on  accord 
ing  to  the  old  methods;  the  old  process  of  exhaustion  must, 
therefore,  go  on ;  and  thus  the  necessity  for  fresh  soils  will  be 
not  less  urgent  under  the  new  regime  than  under  the  old.  The 
stigma  which  slavery  casts  on  industry  will  still  remain  :  there 
will,  therefore,  still  be  an  idle  and  vagabond  class  of  mean 
whites;  and,  since  cultivation  must  still  be  contracted  to  the 
narrow  area  which  is  rich  enough  to  support  slave  labour,  there 
will,  as  now,  be  the  wilderness  to  shelter  them.  There  they 
must  continue  to  drag  out  existence,  lawless,  restless,  incapable 
of  improvement,  eager  as  ever  for  filibustering  raids  on  peace 
ful  neighbours.  Lastly,  the  moral  incidents  of  slavery  must 
remain  such  as  we  have  traced  them.  The  lust  of  power  will 
still  be  generated  by  the  associations  and  habits  of  domestic 
tyranny,  and  the  ambition  of  slaveholders  will  still  connect 
itself  with  that  which  is  the  foundation  of  their  social  life,  and 
offers  to  them  their  only  means  of  emerging  from  obscurity. 
In  a  word,  all  those  fundamental  influences  springing  from  the 
deepest  roots  of  slave  society,  which  have  concurred  to  mould 
the  character  and  determine  the  career  of  the  Slave  Power 
while  in  connexion  with  the  Union,  will,  after  that  connexion 
has  been  dissolved,  continue  to  operate  with  unabated  energy. 

Nor  does  this  adequately  represent  the  case.  While  the 
same  motives  to  ambition  will  remain,  the  appetite  for  power 
will  be  still  further  stimulated  by  the  exigencies  of  its  new  po 
sition.  Connected  with  the  North,  the  Slave  Power  was  sus 
tained  by  the  prestige  of  a  great  confederation.  Through  the 
medium  of  its  government  it  was  brought  into  harmonious  rela 
tions  with  free  countries ;  under  the  regis  of  its  protection  it 
enjoyed  almost  complete  immunity  from  foreign  criticism.  It 
so  happened,  too,  that,  during  the  chief  period  of  its  connexion 
with  the  Union,  the  South  contrived  to  hold  the  reins  of  govern 
ment  in  its  own  hands,  and  was  thus  enabled  in  the  prosecution 
of  its  designs  to  wield  a  power  far  greater  than  its  own,  and  to 
compass  ends,  which,  in  the  absence  of  such  support,  could  not 


134         POSSIBLE  CONDITIONS  OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

* 

have  failed  to  call  up  in  other  countries  effectual  opposition. 
But,  separated  from  the  North,  it  will  neither  command  the 
same  resources  nor  enjoy  among  foreign  powers  the  same  con 
sideration.  Its  position  will  be  one  of  absolute  isolation  from 
the  whole  civilized  world :  it  will  be  compelled  to  encounter 
without  mitigation  the  concentrated  reprobation  of  all  free  soci 
ety.  Such  a  position  will  only  be  permanently  tenable  on  one 
condition — that  of  vastly  augmenting  its  power.  The  South 
will  not  be  slow  to  discover  this ;  and  thus,  by  more  powerful 
inducements  than  it  has  yet  experienced,  the  Slave  Power  will 
be  precipitated  upon  a  new  career  of  aggression. 

These  considerations  apply  to  every  conceivable  hypothesis 
as  to  the  terms  on  which  the  independence  of  the  Southern 
Confederacy  may  be  accomplished.  But,  in  order  to  bring  out 
more  distinctly  the  views  which  are  likely  to  govern  this  body 
as  an  independent  power,  it  will  be  convenient  to  consider  the 
case  on  three  distinct  suppositions. 

We  may  suppose,  first,  that  the  independence  of  the  Slave 
Republic  is  recognized  on  the  terms  of  permanently  limiting 
its  area  to  those  portions  of  the  South  which  are  already  defi 
nitely  settled  under  slavery. 

Or,  secondly,  we  may  suppose  its  independence  to  be  recog 
nized  on  the  condition  of  its  being  restricted  for  the  present  to 
the  above  limits,  but  with  liberty  of  colonizing,  and,  after 
colonization,  of  annexing  the  unsettled  districts  on  equal  terms 
with  the  North — the  question  of  free  or  slave  institutions  being 
left  to  be  determined  by  some  principle  analogous  to  squatter 
sovereignty. 

Thirdly,  we  may  suppose  an  equal  division  of  the  unsettled 
portions  of  the  public  domain  between  the  contending  parties, 
the  South  taking  that  portion  which  lies  westward  of  its  own 
boundary,  including  the  Indian  Territory  and  New  Mexico. 

Taking  the  first  of  these  suppositions — the  recognition  of  the 
independence  of  the  South  on  the  terms  of  being  permanently 
confined  within  the  limits  of  country  already  settled  under 
slavery — this  would  involve  a  considerable  curtailment  of  the 
present  area  of  the  Slave  States.  Extensive  districts  included 
in  this  area  cannot  in  any  correct  sense  be  said  to  be  settled  at 
all ;  and  others  are  settled  under  freedom.  The  latter  observa 
tion  applies  to  large  portions  of  Virginia,  Kentucky,  and  Mis 
souri,  which  would,  therefore,  on  the  hypothesis  we  are  at  pre 
sent  considering,  pass  to  the  side  of  the  North ;  the  former 
applies  to  Texas,  and  in  a  considerable  degree  to  Arkansas. 
Thus,  Texas,  comprising  an  area  of  274,356  square  miles — an 
area  greatly  larger  than  that  of  France — contained  in  1850  but 


LIMITATION'  OF  SLAVERY  TO  ITS  PRESENT  AREA.    135 

58,161  slaves;  and  Arkansas,  extending  over  52,198  square 
miles — an  area  larger  than  that  of  England — contained  but 
47,100  slaves.  Districts  in  which  the  slaves  are  not  more 
numerous  than  this — albeit  they  may  have  been  enrolled  as 
slave  states  to  meet  the  political  exigencies  of  the  Slave  Power 
— cannot  he  said  to  have  been  yet  appropriated  to  slavery. 
The  task  of  their  colonization  has  yet  to  be  performed  ;  and  on 
the  supposition,  therefore,  that  the  Slave  Power  were  restricted 
within  the  country  which  it  has  really  settled,  these  districts 
with  the  others  would  pass  from  its  grasp.  Now,  what  future 
would  lie  before  the  Slave  Power  in  the  event  of  its  being  shut 
up  within  these  limits?  It  seems  to  rne  we  can  have  little  dif 
ficulty  in  forecasting  its  destiny.  If  there  be  any  truth  in  the 
best  established  conclusions,  independence  upon  such  terms 
could  only  be  the  prelude  to  an  early  overthrow  of  the  present 
social  and  political  fabric  of  the  South.  Once  confine  the  ope 
rations  of  slavery  to  the  tracts  which  it  already  occupies,  and 
the  ultimate  extinction  of  the  system  becomes  as  certain 
as  the  ultimate  surrender  of  the  garrison  of  a  beleaguered 
town  which  is  absolutely  cut  off  from  relief.  Em  mcipa- 
tion  would  be  gradually  but  surely  forced  upon  slaveholders 
by  irresistible  causes;  and  scope  would  at  length  be  given  for 
the  resuscitation  of  society  upon  wholesome  principles.  Each 
year  would  bring,  on  the  one  hand,  an  increase  of  the  slave 
population,  and  on  the  other — as  the  soil  deteriorated  under  the 
thriftless  methods  of  slave  culture — a  diminished  area  of  land 
suitable  for  its  employment;  and  the  process  would  continue 
till,  in  the  words  of  Judge  "Warner,  "  both  master  and  slave 
would  be  starved  out."  The  process  of  decay  would  commence 
in  the  older  states.  There  would  be  a  fall  in  the  price  of 
slaves  ;  breeding  would  no  longer  be  profitable  ;  and  thus  the 
single  prop  which  has  for  fifty  years  supported  slavery  in  those 
states  would  be  at  once  withdrawn.  For  a  time  the  working 
states  might  not  be  losers,  and  might  even  be  gainers  by  the 
change.  The  price  of  labour  might  fall  more  rapidly  than 
their  lands  would  deteriorate.  But  it  would  be  for  a  time  only. 
The  decreasing  productiveness  of  the  slave's  exertions  would 
at  length  reach  the  point  at  which  the  returns  from  them  would 
not  equal  the  cost  of  his  support,  and  then  the  progress  towards 
the  catastrophe  would  be  rapid.  The  fate  of  the  older  states 
would  overtake  every  portion  of  the  slave  domain  ;  and  the 
whole  body  of  slaveholders  would  be  compelled  to  face  the 
fearful  problem  of  doing  justice  to  four  million  victims  of  their 
own  and  their  ancestors'  wrong.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed,  how 
ever,  that  the  solution  would  be  postponed  to  the  last  moment. 


136  SECOND  CONDITION  OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

So  soon  as  the  end  came  distinctly  into  view,  provision  would 
doubtless  be  made  to  meet  the  inevitable  change  ;  and  the 
gradualness  of  the  process  would  allow  time  fur  the  action  of 
palliative  influences.  Such,  it  seems  to  me,  would  be  the 
result  of  independence  on  the  terms  involved  in  the  first  hypo 
thesis.  In  such  terms,  however,  we  may  be  well  assured,  the 
Southern  leaders,  fully  understanding  as  they  do  their  own 
case,  would  only  acquiesce  after  complete  subjugation. 

But,  secondly,  we  may  assume,  as  the  condition  of  Southern 
independence,  that  the  unsettled  portions  of  the  public  domain 
(including  under  this  expression,  besides  the  Territories  techni 
cally  so  called,  the  greater  part  of  Arkansas  arid  nearly  the 
whole  of  Texas)  should  be  open  for  slave  colonization,  while  a 
like  liberty  should  be  accorded  for  free  settlement ;  and  we 
have  now  to  consider  what  would  be  the  effect  of  its  position, 
as  thus  determined,  on  the  fortunes  of  the  Slave  Power.  Now 
I  think  it  is  plain  that,  in  view  of  the  competition  which  such 
a  determination  of  the  question  would  inevitably  engender,  the 
necessity  would  at  once  be  forced  upon  the  South  of  maintain 
ing  a  footing  in  the  unsettled  districts  at  whatever  cost.  The 
attractions  offered  by  the  fertile  soils  and  fine  river  systems  of 
Texas  and  Arkansas  could  not  fail  to  draw  from  the  lSror!h,  on 
the  one  hand,  and  from  California,  on  the  other,  crowds  of  tree 
settlers,  who  would  quickly  establish  themselves  upon  the  most 
eligible  sites.  If  th<^South  did  not  proceed  with  equal  energy, 
it  would  find  itself  forestalled  at  every  point.  A  cordon  of  free 
states  would  in  no  long  time  be  drawn  around  its  border,  barr 
ing  its  advance  towards  the  rich  lands  of  Mexico,  and  throwing 
it  back  upon  its  exhausted  fields.  Is  it  likely  that  the  Slave 
Power  would  quietly  contemplate  this  consummation, — that  it 
would  look  forward  to  what  Mr.  Spence  aptly  calls  "the  pain 
ful  process  of  strangulation,"  without  making  an  effort  to  break 
the  bands  which  were  gradully  but  surely  closing  around  it? 
The  supposition  is  incredible.  Freedom  and  slavery  would 
therefore  once  more  renew  their  race  in  the  colonization  of  the 
Territories.  And  on  what  grounds  could  the  South  hope  for 
success  in  such  a  contest?  The  mortifying  lesson  tarjoht.  in 
Kansas  has  not  been  forgotten.  The  South  knows  well  that  a 
renewal  of  the  contest  under  conditions  which  then  brought 
signal  defeat  must  inevitably  lead  to  a  like  result.  But  the 
conditions  of  the  new  trial  of  strength  would,  in  one  respect  at 
least,  be  far  less  favourable  for  the  Southern  cause  than  those 
which  proved  disastrous  in  Kansas.  The  Slave  Power  would 
no  longer  find  an  accomplice  enthroned  at  Washington.  What 
happened  in  Kansas,  therefore,  would  of  necessity  be  repeated 


•THIRD  CONDITION  OF  INDEPENDENCE.  137 

in  Texas  and  New  Mexico;  the  South  would  be  out-colonized 
by  its  rival,  and  the  goal  would  appear  in  no  distant  view. 
There  would  be  but  one  escape  from  this  late — such  a  rapid 
increase  of  its  disposable  slave  population  as  would  supply  the 
detect .from  which  it  suffered  in  its  former  attempts;  and  this 
increase  could  only  be  accompli>hed  in  one  way — a  revival  of 
the  African  slave  trade.  The  revival  of  this  trade  would,  ac 
cordingly,  in  the  event  we  are  considering,  become  a  vital  ques 
tion  for  the  South.  Whether  the  measure  would  really  prove 
effectual  for  the  purpose  designed  is  a  question  which  I  do  not 
think  we  have  sufficient  data  to  resolve  ;  but  that  such  would 
be  the  case  is  undoubtedly  the  opinion  of  the  Southern  leaders. 
"  We  can  divide  Texas  into  live  slave  states,''  says  the  Vice- 
president  of  the  Southern  Confederation,  "  and  get  Chihuahua 
and  S  >nora,  if  we  have  the  slave  population;  but  unless  the 
number  of  the  African  stock  be  increased  we  have  not  the 
population,  and  might  as  well  abandon  the  race  with  our  bre 
thren  of  the  North  in  the  colonization  of  the  Territories.  Slave 
states  cannot  be  made  without  Africans."  "Take  off,"  says 
Mr.  Gaulden  of  Georgia,  4' the  ruthless  restrictions  which  cut 
of?  the  supply  of  slaves  from  foreign  lands  .  .  .  take  off  the 
restrictions  against  the  African  slave  trade,  and  we  should  then 
want  no  protection,  and  I  would  be  willing  to  let  you  have  as 
much  squatter  sovereignty  as  you  wish.  Give  us  an  equal 
chance,  and  I  tell  you  the  institution  of  ^uvery  will  take  care 
of  itself."  From  ail  this  it  seems  to  follow — assuming  a  sepa 
ration  on  the  terms  of  an  open  field  for  free  and  slave  colon iza- 
tin  over  the  still  unsettled  districts — that  the  only  chance  of 
permanently  establishing  the  Southern  Republic  on  that  '•  cor 
ner  stone"  which  its  builders  have  chosen,  would  lie  in  reopen 
ing  the  African  slave  trade,  and  rapidly  increasing  the  supply 
of  slaves;  and  that  the  Southern  leaders  would,  in  the  contin 
gency  supposed,  at  once  adopt  this  expedient  I  cannot  for  a 
moment  doubt.  As  we  have  seen  in  a  former  chapter,  the  trade 
had  actually  been  commenced  on  an  extensive  scale  before  the 
breaking  out  of  the  civil  war;  and,  with  vastly  more  urgent 
reasons  for  reviving  it,  while  there  would  be  entire  freedom 
from  the  restraints  of  Federal  legislation,  it  is  difficult'to  believe 
that  there  would  be  any  hesitation  about  recurring  to  the  same 
course. 

But  tliere  is  yet  another  condition  under  which  the  indepen 
dence  of  the  South  maybe  regarded.  We  may  suppose  that 
the  Union  is  dissolved  on  the  terms  of  an  equal  division  of  the 
unsettled  districts  between  the  contending  parties.  This  ar 
rangement  would  probably  satisfy  the  utmost  aspirations  of  the 


138  GEOGRAPHICAL  CONDITIONS  IGNORED. 

Southern  party.  It  would  probably  also — so  far  as  any  distinct 
ideas  on  the  subject  exist — fall  in  with  the  conception  of  an 
independent  South  which  for  the  most  part  rises  before  those 
who  in  this  country  take  the  Southern  side,  including,  it  may 
be  observed,  some  whose  sincerity  in  disclaiming  all  sympathy 
with  slavery  it  is  impossible  to  doubt.  It  becomes,  therefore, 
of  importance  that  the  consequences  involved  in  this  mode  of 
establishing  Southern  independence  be  carefully  examined. 

The  argument  by  which  the  support  of  the  Southern  cause, 
understood  as  I  have  just  stated  it,  is  reconciled  with  the 
avowal  of  anti-slavery  opinions,  is  one  with  the  basis  of  which 
the  reader  is  now  familiar.  It  is  this,  that  under  the  proposed 
arrangement  the  limits  of  slavery  would  be  fixed;  and  that, 
this  point  being  attained,  the  downfall  of  the  system  would  in 
due  time  follow.  "The  Southern  Confederacy,  hemmed  in 
between  two  free  and  jealous  neighbours  [ihe  Northern  States 
and  Mexico]  will  henceforth  see  its  boundaries,  and  compre 
hend  and  accommodate  itself  to  its  future  conditions  of  national 
existence.  The  moment  slavery  is  confined  definitively  with 
its  present  limits,  according  to  the  best  opinions,  its  character 
becomes  modified  and  its  doom  is  sealed,  though  the  execution 
of  the  sentence  may  seem  to  be  relegated  to  a  very  distant 
day."* 

This  theory,  it  will  be  remarked,  involves  a  suspicious  para 
dox.  It  supposes  tl^at  the  most  complete  success  which  the 
South  can  hope  for  in  the  present  war  would  effectually  defeat 
the  precise  object  for  which  the  South  has  engaged  in  war.  It 
supposes  that  Englishmen  know  more  of  the  real  necessities  of 
slavery  than  the  men  whose  lives  have  been  spent  in  working 
the  system,  and  who  have  now  staked  them  on  an  attempt  to 
establish  it  upon  firm  foundations.  Before  accepting  so  impro 
bable  a  doctrine,  it  would  be  worth  considering  whether  there 
may  not  be  more  to  be  said  for  the  wisdom  of  Mr.  Jefferson 
Davis  and  his  friends,  than  those  would  have  us  think  who  in 
this  country  favour  their  cause. 

It  seems  difficult  to  believe  that  those  who  speculate  on  the 
prospects  of  slavery  in  the  manner  of  the  writer  from  whom  I 
have  quoted,  have  attended  to  the  geographical  conditions 
under  which,  in  the  case  supposed,  the  institution  would  be 
placed.  The  South  is  described  as  u  hemmed  in "  between 
Mexico  and  the  North.  The  expression  implies  ideas  of  magni 
tude  truly  American;  for  the  Power  thus  "hemmed  in*'  would 
be  master  of  a  space  as  large  as  all  Europe  wept  of  the  Vistula, 
and  would  have  at  its  disposal  a  region,  still  unsettled  and 

*  North  British  Review  for  February,  1862,  p.  269. 


NORTHERN  JEALOUSY  NOT  A  SUFFICIENT  SAFEGUARD.  139 

available  for  slave  colonization,  little  less  extensive  than  the 
whole  area  of  the  present  Slave  States.*  Under  an  arrangement 
which  professes  to  provide  for  the  extinction  of  slavery  a  new 
field  would  be  thus  secured  for  its  extension,  equal  to  that 
which  now  employs  4,000,000  slaves. 

But  it  will  perhaps  be  said  that,  whatever  might  be  the 
immediate  effects  of  Southern  independence  established  upon 
these  terms,  still,  the  bounds  of  slavery  being  absolutely  fixed, 
provision  would  be  made  for  its  ultimate  extinction.  Those 
opponents  of  slavery  who  find  comfort  in  this  view  of  the  case 
must  possess  more  far-reaching  sympathies  than  I  can  pretend 
to.  It  may  be  worth  their  while,  however,  to  consider  whether 
even  their  longanimity  may  not  in  the  end  be  balked  of  its 
reward.  For,  ere  the  time  would  arrive  when  the  Slave  Power, 
having  occupied  the  vast  regions  thus  secured  for  it,  would 
begin  to  feel  the  restraints  of  its  spacious  prison,  at  least  a 
quarter  of  a  century  would  have  elapsed,  and  at  least  two  mil 
lion  slaves  would  be  added  to  the  present  number.  With  this 
increase  in  the  area  of  its  dominion  and  in  the  number  of  its 
slave  population,  and  with  the  time  thus  allowed  it  for  consoli 
dating  its  strength  and  maturing  its  plans,  it  cannot  be  doubted 
that  the  power  of  the  South  would  have  become  indefinitely 
more  formidable  than  it  has  ever  yet  shown  itself.  And  as 
little,  I  think,  can  it  be  doubted  that  its  audacity  would  have 
grown  with  its  strength  ;  for  it  would  novfyrby  actual  trial,  have 
proved  its  prowess  against  the  only  antagonist  whom  it  has 
really  to  dread,  and  it  would  enter  on  its  career  of  inde 
pendence  amid  all  the  eclat  of  victory.  In  the  mood  of  mind 
produced  by  the  contemplation  of  its  achievements  and  the 
sense  of  its  supremacy,  is  it  likely  that  the  South  would  be  con 
tent  to  bridle  its  ambition, — much  less  to  accept  a  lot,  acquies 
cence  in  which  would  be  tantamount  to  signing  its  own  doom  ? 

It  will  be  said  that  the  Slave  Power,  severed  from  the  Union, 
would  find  itself  on  all  sides  surrounded  by  watchful  and  jealous 
neighbours,  whose  office  it  would  be  to  counteract  its  intrigues 
and  to  hold  its  ambition  in  check  ;  and  that,  in  discharging  this 
office,  the  free  communities  of  America  would  be  sustained  by 
the  moral,  and,  if  need  were,  by  the  physical,  support  of  the 
Great  Powers  of  Europe.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  there  is  much 
weight  in  this  consideration  ;  yet  its  importance  may  easily  be 
over-rated.  Tue  Northern  States,  once  shut  out  from  Mexico 


*  That  is  to  say,  the  whole  of  those  of  them  which  are  actually  settled  under 
slavery — a  description  which  would  exclude  needy  the  whole  of  Texas,  Florida, 
and  Arkansas,  of  which  three  states  tho  aggregate  slave  population  is  less  than 
150,000. 


140  EUR  OPE  AN  INTER  VENTION 

and  Central  America  l>y  the  vast  range  of  territory  which,  under 
this  determination  of  the  quarrel,  would  be  alienated  from  their 
confederacy,  would  have  little  object  in  staying  the  progress  of 
the  South  in  that  direction.  It  is,  moreover,  important  to  ob 
serve  that  one  of  the  most  popular  projects  among  all  sections 
of  the  Northern  people,  for  some  years  past,  has  been  the 
providing  of  railway  communication  between  the  Atlantic  and 
the  Pacific  States* — a  project  which,  so  soon  as  the  re-establish 
ment  of  peace  shall  allow  time  for  the  prosecution  of  indus 
trial  schemes,  will  doubtless  be  resumed.  Now,  this  idea  once 
carried  into  effect,  the  chief  reason  with  the  Northern  people  for 
desiring  influence  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  would  be  removed. 
Again,  it  is  not  impossible  that,  before  the  time  should  arrive 
when  intervention  might  be  required,  the  position  of  affairs 
among  the  Northern  States  might  be  considerably  altered. 
Although  I  am  quite  unable  to  see  the  ground  for  the  ap 
prehension  now  so  prevalent,  and  apparently  so  influential, 
in  the  North,  that,  a  severance  of  the  Union  once  effected, 
the  process  of  disintegration  would  go  forward  till  society 
should  be  reduced  to  its  primary  elements  ;  still  I  think  it 
cannot  be  doubted  that  the  example  would  be  contagious  ; 
and  thus  it  is  no  violent  supposition,  that,  as  in  course  of 
time  a  difference  of  external  conditions  among  several  groups 
of  the  Northern  States  resulted  in  the  growth  of  different 
interests  and  differ^t  modes  of  regarding  political  questions, 
the  present  would  be  followed  by  future  secessions,  until,  in 
the  end,  several  communities  should  take  the  place  of  the 
existing  Confederation.  Now  it  is  obvious  to  reflect  that, 
were  such  an  order  of  political  relations  once  established,  the 
Northern  States  would  find,  in  the  clashing  interests  and 
mutual  jealousies  developed  among  themselves,  more  tempt 
ing  matter  for  diplomatic  activity  than  in  counteracting  the 
designs  of  Southern  ambition  in  a  part  of  the  world  from 
which  their  connexion,  alike  commercial  and  political,  had 
been-  almost  wholly  cut  off. 

And  still  less  is  European  intervention  to  be  relied  upon. 
The  powers  of  Europe  have  doubtless  strong  reasons  that 
Central  America  should  be  held  by  hands  which  they  can 
trust  ;  and  they  would  naturally  be  disposed  to  offer  obsta 
cles  to  the  progress  of  a  Slave  Power.  But  Europe  is  far 
removed  from  the  scene  of  Mexican  intrigue  ;  and  a  Euro 
pean  war,  or  even  a  serious  complication  in  European  poli 
tics,  might  easily  relax  their  vigilance.  Taking  into  consi- 

*  On  this  point  at  least  the  Republican  and  Democratic  parties  are  one.  See 
their  respective  platforms. 


NOT  TO  BE  RELIED  ON.  141 

deration  all  the  circumstances  of  the  cnse— the  period  \vhich 
would  elapse  before  the  new  lands  could  be  occupied,  a  period 
during  which  the  Slave  Power  would  have  time  to  organize 
its  forces  and  to  study  the  weakness  of  its  opponent^ — the 
chances  that  in  the  interval  disunion  in  the  North,  or  com 
plications  of  policy  in  Europe,  would  produce  contingencies 
favourable  to  its  designs — the  persistency  of  aristocracies  in 
pushing  schemes  on  which  they  have- once  entered — the  emi 
nent  examples  of  this  quality  which  the  South  has  already 
furnished — the  passion,  amounting  to  fanaticism,  with  which 
it  has  long  cherished  this  particular  scheme — above  all,  the 
absolute  necessity  under  which  it  would  in  the  end  lind  itself 
of  extending  its  domain — who,  I  say,  with  all  these  circum 
stances  in  view,  can  feel  assured  that,  once  established  on 
the  broad  basis  of  an  empire  reaching  from  the  Potomac  to 
the  Rio  Grande,  the  Slave  Power  would  not  hold  out  a  serious 
menace  of  realizing  the  vast  projects  of  its  ambition  ;  and  that 
the  world  might  not  one  day  be  appalled  by  the  spectacle 
of  a  great  slaveholding  confederacy  erecting  itself  in  Central 
America,  encircling  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  absorbing  the  "We 4 
Indies,  and  finally  including  under  its  sway  the  whole  tropi 
cal  region  of  the  New  World  ?* 

If  there  be  any  force  in  these  speculations,  it  will   be  seen 
that  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis  and  his  associates  were  not  so  widely 

*  "  Vers  le  milieu  de  1'annee  1859,  il  se  forma  dans  les  etats  qui  cultivent  le 
coton,  et  specialement  dans  la  Louisiarie  et  le  Mississipi,  une  association  mysteri- 
euse,  dont  les  statuts  etaient  couvert  d'un  secret  inviolable,  et  dont  les  membres 
s'intitulaient  les  chevaliers  du  cerck  d'or.  Ces  chevaliers  appartenaient  exclusive- 
ment  aux  classes  aisees ;  ils  avaierit  une  organisation  toute  militaire  et  devaient  etre 
pourvus  d'armes.  Les  progres  rapides  decette  association  attirerent  quelque  atten 
tion  ;  mais  comrne  Walker  parcourait  a  ce  moment  le  sud  et  commencait  les  prepa- 
ratifs  de  1'expedition  dans  laquelle  il  devait  perdre  la  vie,  on  crut  qu'il  se  meditait  un 
nouveau  coup.de  main  centre  l.e  Nicaragua  on  contre  quelqu'une  des  provinces  du 
Mexique,  que  1'objet  de  I'association  etait  de  recueillir  de  1'argent  et  de  recruter  des 
hommes  pour  le  compte  du  eelebre  flibustier.  D'autres  penserent  que  le  succes  qui 
avait  couronne  les  tentatives  faites  pour  introduce  des  negres  d'Afrique  par  lea 
bouches  du  Mississipi  avait  donne  naissance  a  de  vastes  operations  de  traite.  Commo 
il  s'agissait,  dans  les  deux  cas,  de  violer  les  lois  et  de  dejouer  la  surveillance  dea 
autorites  federates,  le  mystere  dont  s'entourait  1'association  s'expliquait  tout  naturelle- 
ment.  Les  projets  des  chevaliers  etaient  beaucoup  plus  ambitieux  cependant :  ils 
tendaient  ft,  detacher  de  la  confederation  les  etats  qui  cultivent  le  coton  pour  en 
former  une  republique  nouvelle,  dont  1'esclavage  serait  1'institution  fondamentale,  et 
qui  puiserait  dans  le  retablissement  de  la  traite  les  elemens  d'une  rapide  prosperite. 
Des  que  sa  force  d'expansion  ne  serait  plus  arretee  par  la  cherte  de  la  main-d'o3uvre, 
la  nouvelle  republique  ne  pouvait  manquer  d'absorber  en  quelques  annees  le  Mex 
ique,  le  Nicaragua  et  la  Bolivie ;  elle  acquerrait  de  gre  ou  de  force  toutes  les  An 
tilles,  et  fonderait  au  centre  du  continent  americain  1'etat  le  plus  riche  et  le  plus 
puissant  du  monde.  Le  cercle  d'or,  c'etaient  done  les  pays  et  les  iles  qui  forment 
autour  du  golfe  du  Mexique  une  ceinture  d'une  incomparable  fecondite." — Annuaire 
des  deux  Jlondes,  1860,  p.  602. 


142  REVIVAL  OF  THE  AFRICAN  SLAVE  TRADE. 

mistaken  in  the  selection  of  their  means  as  has  been  commonly 
supposed,  and  that  they  may  contemplate  with  considerable 
complacency  the  "  euthanasia  "  which  has  been  predicted  for 
their  favourite  institution.*  That  the  establishment  of  South 
ern  independence  upon  equal  terms  will  "  modify  the  charac 
ter"  of  slavery,  I  am  far  from  denying.  But  it  is  important  to 
determine  in  what  direction  the  modification  will  take  place, 
and,  in  connexion  with  this  subject,  I  shall  revert  to  a  topic  to 
which  I  have  already  more  than  once  referred,  but  the  import 
ance  of  which  deserves  a  somewhat  fuller  consideration  than 
has  yet  been  given  to  it — I  mean  the  possibility  of  a  revival  of 
the  African  slave  trade. 

The  audacity  of  this  conception  and  its  incongruity  with  the 
prevailing  modes  of  thought  in  Europe,  and  especially  in  Eng 
land,  have  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  caused  general  incredu 
lity  as  to  the  fact  that  such  a  project  has  been  really  enter 
tained.  It  seems  almost  too  monstrous  that  a  party,  claiming 
admission  as  an  equal  member  into  the  community  of  Christian 
nations,  should  deliberately  conceive  the  plan  of  reviving  in 
the  full  light  of  modern  civilization  a  scandal  which  has  long 
lain  under  its  ban.  It  is  not  then  strange  that  the  disclaimers 
by  Southern  agents  of  any  intention  on  the  part  of  the  South 
to  revive  the  trade  have,  for  the  most  part,  obtained  an  easy 
acceptance  in  Europe.  But  those  who  are  thus  easily  satisfied 
can  scarcely  have  J&ended  to  the  prevailing  tendencies  of 
Southern  politics,  or  be  aware  of  the  steps  which,  previous  to 
the  outbreak  of  the  civil  war,  had  been  actually  taken  in  this 
direction  by  the  party  now  dominant  in  the  South.  Of  the 
strong  interest  of  the  Slave  Power  in  the  revival  of  the  trade, 
in  the  event  of  its  independence  being  established  on  any  terms 
which  give.it  a  chance  of  maintaining  itself  in  the  Territories, 
there  cannot  I  think  be  a  doubt.  It  has  been  already  shown 
that,  on  one  supposition,  the  question  would  become  absolutely 
vital.  It  would  be  only  a  choice  between  the  reopening  of  the 
trade  and  acquiescence  in  a  condition  of  things  which  would 
be  tantamount  to  early  extinction.  On  the  hypothesis  last 
considered,  there  would  not,  indeed,  be  the  same  vital  necessity 
for  the  measure ;  nevertheless,  the  temptation  to  it  would  be 
strong.  The  labour  force  of  the  South  has  long  been  unequal 
to  the  requirements  of  the  planters.  Of  this  the  steady  rise  in 
the  price  of  slaves  during  half  a  century  is  a  sufficient  proof. 

*  "  This  euthanasia  of  slavery  [the  consummation  of  Southern  independence,  as 
conceived  by  the  writer]  we  admit  to  be  plow 'and  distant ;  but  we  solemn!}'  believe 
it  to  be  both  safe  and  certain.  And,  at  least,  it  is  a  euthanasia — a  natural  and  not 
a  violent  death."— North  British  Review  for  February,  1862.  p.  272. 


REVIVAL  OF  THE  AFRICAN  SLA  VE  TRADE.          143 

But,  with  the  wljole  Southern  Territory  secured  for  exclusive 
slave  settlement,  the  insufficiency  of  the  home  supply  to  meet 
the  necessities  of  the  case  would  be  more  manifest  than  ever. 
With  the  advance  in  price  breeding  would  no  doubt  be  stimu 
lated  in  the  older  states ;  but  the  process  of  augmentation  by 
natural  increase  would  be  slow,  while  on  the  other  hand,  the 
high  price  of  labour  would  greatly  curtail  the  profits  of  culti 
vation.  Under  these  circumstances,  it  is  difficult  to  believe 
that  the  planters  of  the  South  would  long  tolerate  an  impedi 
ment  which  stood  between  them  and  the  realization  of  vast 
schemes  of  aggrandizement,  more  especially  when  the  mainte 
nance  of  the  obstacle  could  only  be  justified  on  grounds 
of  morality  which  the  whole  South  would  reject  with  dis 
dain.  The  continued  prohibition  of  the  trade  would  be 
denounced  as  an  unworthy  subserviency  to  the  fanaticism 
of  foreign  governments — as  (to  quote  language  which  has 
already  been  employed  in  this  cause)  "  branding  every  slave 
holder  in  the  land  with  the  mark  of  guilt  and  disho 
nour."*  Slaveholders  would  be  called  upon  as  before,  but  in 
tones  rendered  more  authoritative  by  the  increased  prestige 
which  the  cause  of  slavery  would  have  acquired,  to  remove 
"  the  degrading  stigma"  from  "  their  most  essential  political 
institution,"  and,  as  the  means  at  once  of  filling  their  pockets 
and  clearing  their  fame,  to  repeal  a  law  jarring  alike  with  their 
moral  and  material  susceptibilities.  As$>pposed  to  these  con 
siderations,  the  only  counter-motive  of  the  slightest  weightf 


*  Mr.  John  Forsyth,  late  Minister  to  Mexico,  in  the  Mobile  Register. 

•j-  For  I  do  not  think  that  the  provision  in  the  Montgomery  Constitution  prohibit 
ing  the  African  slave  trade  will,  by  any  one  acquainted  with  the  history  of  the  party 
who  framed  it,  or  with  the  circumstances  of  the  particular  case,  be  so  considered. 
The  motives  which  dictated  the  provision  are  very  clearly  set  forth  by  Mr.  Everett 
in  the  following  passage  of  a  speech  delivered  some  months  ago : — "  Now,  to  meet 
this  state  of  things  and  this  interest,  supposed  to  be  vital  in  Virginia,  the  skilful  men 
that  were  employed  in  drawing  up  a  new  constitution  for  the  Confederate  States 
South  introduced  in  the  first  place  a  clause  prohibiting  the  African  slave  trade.  This" 
was  intended  to  have  the  further  effect  of  conciliating  foreign  influence ;  but  then  the 
next  clause  was  that  it  should  always  be  competent  for  a  Southern  Congress  to  pro 
hibit  the  domestic  slave  trade,  and  in  the  debates  at  Montgomery  on  this  clause  no 
secret  was  made  of  the  intention  of  these  provisions.  It  was  openly  said  that  they 
meant  to  say  to  Virginia :  '  The  other  border  states  join  the  Confederacy,  and  we 
allow  the  domestic  slave  trade  to  go  on.  Stand  aloof  from  us,  and  we  will  amend 
that  feature  in  the  constitution  which  prohibits  the  African  slave  trade ;  we  will  sup 
ply  ourselves  from  that  quarter.'  Thus  you  see  there  was  at  once  in  the  same  breath 
a  bribe  and  a  menace  to  Virginia,  but  for  the  time,  and  as  far  as  we  can  judge,  not 
with  much  effect.  The  '  Ancient  Dominion '  had  a  character  in  the  world.  She  was 
not  willing  at  home  or  abroad  to  assume  the  position  of  an  ancient  powerful  state 
standing  aloof  from  such  a  movement  as  this  on  the  causes  for  which  its  authors  inau 
gurated  it,  and  then,  months  after  joining  it  that  she  might  secure  to  herself  the 


144  UNANIMITY  OF  SLA  VEHOLDERS. 

whicli  can  come  into  play,  is  the  interest  of  the  breeding  states 
in  maintaining  their  monopoly.  That  they  would  have  this 
interest  in  a  pecuniary  sense  is,  indeed,  abundantly  evident. 
But  would  this  circumstance  be  allowed  permanently  to  prevail 
against  not  merely  the  equal  pecuniary  interests  of  other  states 
in  the  opposite  policy,  but  against  the  requirements,  in  the 
largest  sense,  of  the  whole  Slave  Republic?  A  consideration  of 
the  course  pursued  under  analogous  circumstances  on  former 
occasions  will  show  the  extreme  improbability  of  such  a  sup 
position. 

There  is  perhaps  nothing  more  remarkable  in  the  past  career 
of  the  Slave  Power  than  the  unanimity  with  whicli  the  whole 
body  of  slaveholders  have  concurred  in  supporting  a  given 
policy,  so  soon  as  it  was  clearly  understood  that  the  public  in 
terests  of  slavery  prescribed  its  adoption  ;  yet  with  the  line  of 
policy  which,  in  view  of  this  necessity,  has  been  actually  fol 
lowed,  the  interests  of  the  Slave  States  have  been  far  from 
being  equally  identified.  The  slave  breeding  states  of  Virginia 
and  Kentucky  had  a  very  distinct  and  palpable  advantage  in 
opening  new  ground  for  slave  cultivation  across  the  Mississippi., 
They  thereby  created  a  new  market  for  their  slave?,  and 
directly  enhanced  the  value  of  their  principal  property.  33ut 
the  slave-working  States  of  Alabama  and  Mississippi,  which 
were  buyers,  not  sellers,  of  slaves,  which  were  producers,  not 
consumers,  of  cotto^  had  a  precisely  opposite  interest  as 
regards  this  enterprise.  The  effect  of  the  policy  of  territorial 
extension  in  relation  to  them,  was  to  raise  the  price  of  slaves — 
the  productive  instrument  which  they  employed;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  to  reduce  the  price  of  cotton — the  commodity  in 
which  they  dealt.  It  at  once  increased  their  outlay  and 


melancholy  privilege  of  continuing  to  stock  the  plantations  of  Alabama,  Mississippi, 
and  Louisiana." 

The  party  which  enacted  this  prohibition  is  the  party  which  passed  and  repealed 
the  Missouri  Compromise ;  which  accepted  and  repudiated  the  principle  of  the  Ne 
braska  Bill.  In  the  former  case  the  bargain  was  adhered  to  till  the  Southern  party 
had  appropriated  its  share  of  it ;  in  the  latter  till  it  was  proved  unequal  to  what  was 
required  of  it.  In  both  cases  solemn  engagements  were  set  aside  the  moment  they 
became  inconvenient.  Considering  the  circumstances  under  which  the  prohibition 
of  the  African  slave  trade  has  been  passed,  is  it  likely  that  it  will  be  regarded  as 
more  sacred  than  the  Missouri  Compromise,  or  than  the  Nebraska  Bill?  The  follow 
ing  passage  from  a  Florida  paper,  the  Southern  Confederacy,  will  show  that  the  vali 
dity  of  the  enactment  has  been  already  called  into  question,  and  on  precisely  the 
same  grounds  as  those  on  which  the  former  engagements  were  challenged.  "  For  God's 
sake,  and  the  sake  of  consistenc}',  do  not  let  us  form  a  Union  for  the  express  purpose 
of  maintaining  and  propagating  African  slavery ;  and  then,  as  the  Southern  Congress 
has  done,  confess  our  error  by  enacting  a  constitutional  provision  abolishing  the 
African  slave  trade.  The  opening  of  the  trade  is  a  mere  question  of  expediency,  to  be 
determined  by  legislative  enactment  hereafter,  but  not  by  a  constitutional  provision." 


DESIRE  TO  APPROPRIATE  CUBA.  145 

diminished  their  returns.  Yet  this  did  not  prevent  the  whole 
body  of  Slave  States  from  working  steadily  together  in  pro 
moting  that  policy  which  the  maintenance  of  the  Slave  Power, 
as  a  political  system,  demanded.  A  still  more  striking  instance 
of  the  readiness  to  sacrifice  particular  interests  to  the  political 
ascendancy  of  the  body  is  furnished  by  the  conduct  of  the  South 
in  its  dealings  with  Cuba.  The  annexation  of  this  island  has 
long  been,  as  all  the  world  knows,  a  darling  project  of  Southern 
ambition.  The  bearing  of  the  acquisition  on  the  general  inte 
rests  of  the  South  is  very  obvious.  It  would  add  to  its  do 
main  a  district  of  incomparable  fertility.  It  would  give  it  a 
commanding  position  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  It  would  increase 
its  political  weight  in  the  Union.  But  there  is  one  state  m  the 
South  which  could  not  fail  to  be  injured  in  a  pecuniary  souse 
by  the  acquisition.  The  principal  industry  of  the  State  of 
Louisiana  is  the  same  as  that  of  Cuba — the  cultivation  of 
sugar.  But  the  soils  of  Louisiana  are  far  inferior  to  those  of 
Cuba — so  much  so  that  the  planters  of  that  State  are  only  able 
to  hold  their  ground  against  the  competition  of  their  Cuban 
rivals  by  the  assistance  of  a  high  protective  duty.  Now  the 
immediate  consequence  of  the  annexation  of  Cuba  to  the  South 
would  be  the  abolition  of  the  protection  which  the  planters  of 
Louisiana  now  enjoy — an  event  which  could  not  fail  to  bo  fol 
lowed  by  the  disappearance,  in  great  pa "4-  "^  the  artificial  pro 
duction  which  it  sustains.  Nevertheless/Umisiana  has  formed 
no  exception  to  the  general  eagerness  of  the  South  to  appro 
priate  Cuba ;  so  far  from  this,  it  has  curiously  enough  hap 
pened  that  the  man  who  has  been  most  prominent  among  the 
piratical  party  who  have  advocated  this  step  is  Mr.  Slidell,* 
the  senator  in  Congress  for  the  State  of  Louisiana.  The  sym 
pathies  which  bind  slaveholders  together  have  thus  always 
proved  more  powerful  than  the  particular  interests  which  would 
sunder  them;  and  whatever  course  the  necessities  of  slavery,. 
as  a  system,  have  prescribed,  that  the  whole  array  of  slave 
holders,  with  a  disregard  for  private  ends,  which,  in  a  good 
cause,  would  be  the  highest  virtue,  has  never  hesitated  to  pur 
sue. 

The  piecedents,  therefore,  afforded  by  the  past  history  of  the 
South  would  lead  us  to  expect  that,  so  soon  as  the  expediency 
of  the  African  slave  trade,  in  promoting  the  political  interests 
of  the  Slave  Power,  became  clear,  the  private  advantage  of  par 
ticular  states  would  be  waived  in  deference  to  the  requirements 
of  the  whole  Confederacy.  But,  though  this  should  not  be  so 

*  This  was  the  gentleman  selected  by  Southern  tact  to  recommend  the  cause  cf 
the  South  to  Europe. 

10 


146  FREE  TRADE  IN  SLA  VES. 

—though  the  border  states,  when  the  trial  came,  should  prove 
deficient  in  that  public  spirit  which  the  working  states  in  simi 
lar  circumstances  have  never  failed  to  exhibit — it  is  still  quite 
inconceivable  that  what  the  public  interests  required  should  be 
permanently  postponed  to  an  opposition  resting  on  such  a  basis. 
The  men  who  now  guide  the  councils  of  the  Confederacy,  from 
the  moment  of  their  accession  to  power  to  the  present  time, 
have  never  shrunk  from  any  act  essential  to  their  ends :  such 
men,  having  triumphantly  carried  their  party  through  a  bloody 
civil  war,  would  hardly  allow  themselves  to  be  baffled  by  the 
selfish  obstinacy  of  a  few  of  their  number.  Indeed  already  the 
particular  expedient  to  which,  in  the  event  of  protracted  obsti 
nacy,  recourse  might  be  had,  has  been  hinted  at  in  no  obscure 
terms.  Mr.  De  Bow  has  advocated  the  reopening  of  the  Afri 
can  slave  trade  upon  the  distinct  ground  that  it  is  necessary  to 
extend  the  basis  of  slavery  by  bringing  slaves  within  the  reach 
of  a  larger  number  than,  at  their  present  price,  are  able  to  pur 
chase  them.  By  this  means,  he  argues,  increased  stability 
would  be  given  to  the  institution  in  proportion  as  the  numbers 
interested  in  maintaining  it  should  be  increased.  Of  the 
soundness  of  this  policy  from  the  stand-point  of  the  Slave  Power 
there  can,  I  think,  be  no  question  ;  and  for  the  means  of  carry 
ing  it  out  in  the  last  resort  the  extreme  party  could  be  at  no 
loss.  Let  the  reader  observe  the  purpose  to  which  this  argu 
ment  might  be  tu$£ed  in  the  event  of  a  schism  between  the 
breeding  and  the  working  states  on  the  point  in  question.  It 
is  well  known  that  the  possession  of  a  slave  is  the  great  object 
of  the  poor  white's  ambition,  and  the  most  effectual  means  of 
gratifying  this  ambition  would  be  to  make  slaves  cheap.  To 
rally,  then,  to  the  cause  of  free  trade  in  slaves  this  numerous 
•class  would  be,  indeed,  an  easy  task.  Nothing  more  would  be 
needed  than  to  appeal  to  their  most  obvious  interest,  to  give 
play  to  their  most  cherished  passion.  Everywhere — in  Vir 
ginia  and  Kentucky  no  less  than  in  the  states  of  the  extreme 
South — the  opening  of  the  African  slave  trade  would  be  hailed 
with  enthusiasm  by  the  great  bulk  of  the  people ;  and  thus, 
whenever  convenience  demanded  it,  the  resistance  of  an  inte 
rested  section  might  be  overborne  by  the  almost  universal  voice 
of  the  rest  of  the  community. 

To  sum  up  the  results  of  this  part  of  the  discussion  : — on 
every  hypothesis  of  Southern  independence,  save  that  which 
would  be  equivalent  to  the  early  extinction  of  the  Slave  Power, 
the  reopening  of  the  African  slave  trade  would  be  recommend 
ed  to  the  South  by  almost  irresistible  inducements — in  one  con 
tingency  by  considerations  which  appeal  to  interests  that  are 


DUTY  OF  EUROPE-NEUTRALITY.  147 

vital.  The  only  source  of  opposition  would  be  the  private 
interests  of  the  breeding  states ;  but  private  interests  in  the 
history  of  the  South  have  always  yielded  to  the  demands  of 
public  policy,  and  would  probably  do  so  in  this  case.  In  the 
event,  however,  of  the  breeding  states  proving  refractory,  the 
leaders  of  the  extreme  party  would  have  the  remedy  in  their 
own  hands.  The  protest  of  a  narrow  minority  would  be  wholly 
powerless  to  stem  the  tide  of  popular  feeling  which  they  have 
it  in  their  power  at  any  moment  to  evoke. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

GENERAL    CONCLUSIONS. 

WHAT  is  the  duty  of  European  nations  towards  North  America 
in  the  present  crisis  of  its  history  ?     I  answer — to  observe  a 
strict  neutrality  between  the  contending  parties,  giving  their 
moral  support  to  that  settlement  of  the  question  which  is  most 
in  accordance  with  the  general  interest  of  the  world.      What 
ground  is  there  for  European  interference  in  the  quarrel  ?     In 
the  present  aspect  of  affairs  absolutely  none — none,  that  is  to 
say,  which  would  not  equally  justify  interference  in  every  war 
which  ever  occurred.      I  say,  in  the  present  aspect  of  affairs, 
for  in  a  different  aspect  of  affairs  I  can  well  imagine  that  a 
different  course  would  be  justifiable,  and  might  even  become  a 
duty.     Supposing  free  society  in  North  America  in  danger  of 
being  overborne  by  the  Slave  Power,  would  not  the  threatened 
predominance  in  the  new  world  of  a  confederacy  resting  on 
slavery  as  its  corner  stone,  and  proclaiming  the  propagandism 
of  slavery  as  its  mission,  be  an  occasion  for  the  interference  of 
civilized  nations  ?       If  there  be  reason  that  civilized  nations 
should  combine  to  resist  the  aggressions  of  Russia — a  country 
containing  the  germs  of  a  vigorous  and  progressive  civilization 
— would  there  be  none  for  opposing  the  establishment  of  "  a 
barbarous  and  barbarizing  Power" — a  Power  of  whose  exist 
ence  slavery  is  the  final  cause  ?     But  that  contingency  is  hap 
pily  not  now  probable  ;  and  in  the  present  position  of  the  Ame 
rican  contest  there  is  not  even  a  plausible  pretext  for  interven 
tion.     It  is  unhappily  true  that  our  trade  is  suffering,  that  much 
distress  prevails  in  our  manufacturing  districts,  and  that  we  are 
threatened  with  even  more  serious  consequences  than  have  yet 
been  felt.       But  is  this  a  plausible  pretext  for  interfering  in  a 
foreign  war  ?     How  can  a  great  war  be  carried  on  without  di&- 


148  IMPOLICY_  OF  INTER  VENTION. 

turbing  the  commerce  of  the  world?  For  what  purpose  are 
blockades  instituted  and  permitted?  To  say  that,  because  we 
are  injuriously  affected  by  a  blockade  we  will  not  recognize  it, 
is  simply  to  say  that  we  do  not  choose  to  be  bound  by  laws 
longer  than  it  suits  our  convenience — is  to  throw  away  even 
the  pretence  of  justice.  But  interference  in  the  present  case 
would  be  not  merely  immoral,  it  would  be  futile — nay,  if  the 
relief  of  distress  be  really  the  object  of  those  who  urge  it,  it 
would,  we  can  scarce  doubt,  aggravate  a  hundred-fold  the  evils 
it  was  intended  to  cure.  For,  supposing  the  blockade  of  the 
Southern  ports  to  be  raised,  to  what  purpose  would  be  this  re 
sult  if  the  war  continued?  It  would,  doubtless,  carry  comfort 
to  the  Slave  Confederacy  ;  it  might  possibly  bring  a  few  hun 
dred  thousand  bales  of  cotton  to  Europe  ;  but,  in  the  present 
condition  of  the  South,  with  Northern  armies  encamped  on  its 
soil,  it  would  not  cause  cotton  to  be  grown,  and  still  less  would 
it  open  Northern  markets  to  our  manufactures.  A  fleet  may 
raise  a  blockade,  but  it  cannot  compel  people  to  buy  goods  who 
do  not  want  them.  Intervention  in  America  would,  therefore, 
fail  to  restore  trade  to  its  normal  channels ;  and  it  is  admittedly 
to  a  disturbance  in  the  normal  channels  of  trade  far  more  than 
to  scarcity  of  any  single  commodity — to  a  cessation  of  Northern 
demand  far  more  than  to  an  interruption  of  Southern  supply — 
that  the  distress  v&~&  experienced  in  England  is  due.*  Now 
the  cessation  of  IfSrthern  demand  will  continue  as  long  as  the 
war  continues  ;  so  that  the  effect  of  intervention  on  manufactur 
ing  distress  would  depend  on  its  effect  on  the  duration  of  the 
war.  And  what  would  be  this  effect?  On  such  a  subject  it 
would  be  absurd  to  speak  with  confidence  ;  but  there  is  one 
historical  parallel  which  comes  so  close  to  the  present  case  that 
we  should  do  well  to  poider  it.  In  1792  an  armed  intervention 
of  European  Powers  t  -k  place  in  France.  The  allied  sove 
reigns  were  not  less  confident  of  their  ability  to  impose  condi 
tions  on  the  French  people,  than  are  those  who  now  urge  inter 
vention  in  America  of  the  ability  of  France  and  England  to  set 
tle  the  affairs  of  that  continent.  But  we  know  how  the  inter 
vention  of  1792  ended.  The  spirit  of  democracy,  allying  itself 
with  the  spirit  of  patriotism,  kindled  in  the  people  of  France  an 
energy  which  not  merely  drove  back  the  invaders  from  their 
soil,  but  which  carried  the  invaded  people  as  conquerors  over 
the  length  and  breadth  of  continental  Europe.  Such  was  the 
effect  of  a  policy  of  intervention  in  the  affairs  of  a  great  Euro 
pean  nation.  What  reason  have  we  to  expect  a  different  result 
from  a  similar  policy  pursued  in  America?  Has  democracy  in 

*  See  the  Economist,  26th  April,  1862. 


OBLIGATION  TO  RENDER  MORAL  SUPPORT.          149 

America  shown  less  energy  than  in  Europe  ?  Is  its  organization 
less  effective  ?  Is  the  spirit  of  its  patriotism  leas  powerful  ? 
Are  the  resources  which  it  commands  for  war  less  extensive  ? 
Or  will  the  adversaries  of  democracy  fight  it  with  greater 
advantage  across  the  reach  of  the  Atlantic?  I  am  assuming 
that  an  intervention,  if  attempted,  would  be  resolutely  carried 
out :  that  a  mere  interference  by  our  navies  would  only  exacer 
bate  and  prolong  the  quarrel  is  so  obvious  as  to  disentitle  such 
a  proposition  to  a  mo/nent's  serious  regard.  The  duty  of  neu 
trality  is,  therefore,  in  the  present  case  as  plainly  marked  <>nt 
by  the  dictates  of  selfish  policy  as  by  the  maxims  of  mor  lity 
and  law.  While  intervention  would  fail  to  alleviate  the  evils 
under  which  we  suffer,  it  would  almost  certainly  add  to  those 
evils  the  calamity  of  a  great  war — a  war  which  would  bequeath 
to  the  posterity  of  the  combatants  a  legacy  of  mutual  hatred, 
destined  to  embitter  their  relations  for  centuries  to  come. 

But  the  duty  of  neutrality  is  not  incompatible  with  the  ren 
dering  of  moral  support.  We  may  be  required  to  abstain  from 
giving  effect  to  our  convictions  by  force,  but  we  can  never  be 
justly  required  to  abstain  from  advancing  them  by  moral 
means.  Nay,  so  long  as  the  conflict  between  good  and  evil 
lasts,  the  obligation  to  sustain  the  right  cause  by  sympathy  and 
counsel  is  one  from  which  we  cannot  relieve  ourselves.  It 
becomes,  therefore,  of  extreme  important  to  consider  what  is 
that  settlement  of  the  American  contesr  which  deserves  the 
moral  support  of  Europe. 

There  are  two  modes  of  terminating  the  present  war,  e'ther 
of  which  must,  it  seems  to  me,  be  almost  equally  deprecated 
by  every  friend  of  freedom  and  of  the  American  people  : — such 
a  triumph  of  the  Southern  party  as  would  give  to  it  the  com 
mand  of  the  unsettled  districts  to  the  south  and  west ;  and  such 
a  reconstruction  of  the  Union  as  would  restore  slavery  to  its 
former  footing  in  the  Republic.  It  is,  I  think,  difficult  to  say 
which  of  these  results  would  be  the  more  extensively  disastrous. 
The  one  would  establish,  amid  all  the  eclat  of  victory,  a  slave 
empire,  commanding  the  resources  of  half  a  continent,  fired 
witli  an  ardent  ambition,  and  cherishing  vast  designs  of  aggres 
sion  and  conquest.  The  other  would  once  more  commit  a 
moral  and  freedom-loving  people — the  main  hope  of  civilization 
in  the  New  World — to  complicity  with  the  damning  guilt  of 
slavery.  The  Union,  restored  on  the  principle  of  restricting 
slavery,  would  not  indeed  be  the  same  Union  as  that  in  which 
the  Slave  Power  was  predominant.  But  fortune  is  capricious 
in  politics  as  in  war.  A  few  years  might  bring  a  change  in  the 
position  of  parties;  and  a  revolution  of  the  wheel  might  once 


150  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  TEE  UNION. 

again  commit  the  central  government  to  the  propagandists  of 
slavery.  Even  should  this  worst  result  not  happen,  the  corrupt 
ing  influence  of  the  alliance  would  remain  ;  the  continued  con 
nivance  at  the  perpetration  of  a  great  wrong  would  again  force 
the  Republic  into  degrading  compliances,  and  the  progress  of 
political  degeneracy,  arrested  for  a  moment  by  the  shock  of  a 
violent  reaction,  would  proceed  as  before.  Between  the  evils 
of  such  a  termination  of  the  contest  and  the  absolute  triumph 
of  the  Slave  Power,  it  would,  perhaps,  not  be  easy  to  decide. 

A  year  ago  either  of  these  results,  almost  equally  to  be 
deplored,  seemed  almost  equally  probable.  The  Northern  peo 
ple,  taken  by  surprise,  its  leaders  unaccustomed  to  power,  its 
arsenals  in  the  hands  of  its  enemies,  with  traitors  in  its  public 
offices,  divided  into  parties  holding  discordant  views  and  recom 
mending  different  courses,  unanimous  only  in  one  strong  wish 
— a  desire  at  all  events  to  uphold  the  Union — seemed  for  a  time 
prepared  to  make  almost  any  concession  which  promised  to 
secure  this  end.  On  the  other  hand,  no  vacillation  marked  the 
South.  With  the  directness  of  men,  who,  fixed  in  their  ends, 
have  little  scruple  in  their  choice  of  means,  its  leaders  were 
urgent  to  precipitate  the  catastrophe.  Their  skilfully  contrived 
treason  had  secured  for  them  the  principal  forts  and  almost  the 
whole  military  stores  of  the  Republic.  The  most  experienced 
officers  in  the  United  States  army  were  their  trusted  agents,  and 
were  rapidly  passing  over  to  their  side.  Elated  by  success  and 
confident  in  their  resources,  it  seemed,  at  the  outset  of  the  con 
test,  that  they  had  all  but  accomplished  their  daring  scheme — 
that  little  remained  for  them  but  to  seize  upon  Washington,  and 
dictate  from  the  capitol  the  terms  of  separation. 

Such  was  the  position  of  affairs  when  the  contest  opened. 
A  year  has  passed,  and  contingencies  which  then  appeared 
imminent  seem  no  longer  within  the  range  of  possible  events. 
In  presence  of  the  searching  test  which  real  danger  applies  to 
political  theories,  and  amid  the  enthusiasm  kindled  by  war,  the 
political  education  of  the  North  has  made  rapid  progress.  The 
true  source  of  disaffection  to  the  Union,  so  long  concealed  by 
the  arts  of  temporizing  politicians,  has  been  laid  bare,  and  is 
no  longer  doubted.  The  impossibility  of  bringing  free  and 
slave  societies  into  harmonious  co-operation  under  the  same 
political  system  begins  to  be  understood.  The  absolute  neces 
sities  of,  at  all  hazards,  breaking  the  strength  of  the  Slave 
Power,  as  the  first  step  towards  re-establishing  political  society 
in  North  America,  is  rapidly  becoming  the  accepted  creed. 
Meanwhile,  the  advance  of  the  Northern  armies  in  the  field 
has  kept  pace  with  that  of  opinion  in  the  public  assemblies, 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  UNION.  151 

and,  by  an  almost  unbroken  series  of  fruitful  victories,  the 
military  superiority  of  the  North  seems  now  to  be  definitively 
established.  In  this  aspect  of  affairs — with  anti-slavery  opi 
nions  making  rapid  way  in  the  North,  and  Northern  armies 
steadily  advancing  on  the  Southern  States — the  reconstruction 
of  the  Union,  with  slavery  retained  on  its  former  footing,  and 
still  more  the  complete  triumph  of  the  Slave  Power,  may,  it 
seems  to  me,  be  fairly  discharged  from  our  consideration. 
Nay,  I  think,  the  actual  state  of  facts,  taken  in  connexion 
with  the  resources  of  the  contending  parties,  warrants  us  in 
going  a  step  further,  and  holding  that,  in  the  absence  of  foreign 
intervention,  the  South  must  in  the  end  succumb  to  its  oppo 
nent.  If  this  be  so,  what  remains  to  be  decided  is  this  :  on  what 
terms  shall  the  submission  of  the  South  be  made  ? — shall  it  return 
to  the  Union  to  be  ruled  by  the  North,  or  secede  under  condi 
tions  to  be  prescribed  by  its  conqueror  ?  Assuming  these  to  be 
the  practical  issues  involved  in  the  struggle  at  the  stage  to  which 
it  has  now  attained,  I  shall  proceed  to  consider  to  what  deter 
mination  of  it  the  moral  support  of  Europe  should  be  given. 

It  seems  impossible  to  doubt  that,  at  the  present  time,  the 
prevailing  purpose  of  the  Northern  people  aims  at  no  less  than 
a  complete  reconstruction  of  the  Union  in  its  original  propor 
tions.  The  project  admits  of  being  regarded  under  several 
aspects  : — how  far  is  it  justified? — how  fkr  is  it  practicable  ? — 
how  far  is  it  expedient  ?  On  each  of  thest  points  some  remarks 
suggest  themselves. 

The  forcible  imposition  on  some  millions  of  human  beings 
of  a  form  of  government  at  variance  with  their  wishes,  is  an 
act  which  undoubtedly  demands  special  grounds  for  its  justifi 
cation.  Whether  the  South  be  regarded  as  a  portion  of  the 
same  nation  with  the  North,  or  as  a  distinct  people,  it  seems, 
on  either  view  of  the  case,  impossible  that  an  attempt  to  sub 
jugate,  for  the  purpose  of  ruling  it,  can  be  reconciled  with  the 
maxims  of  political  morality  which  we  regard  in  this  country 
as  applicable  to  the  ordinary  practice  of  civilized  nations.  If, 
then,  these  maxims  admit  of  no  exception,  this  branch  of  the 
argument  is  resolved,  and  the  justification  of  the  present  views 
of  the  North  must  be  given  up.  But,  writing  in  a  nation  which 
holds  in  subjection  under  despotic  rule  two  hundred  millions 
of  another  race,  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say  that  maxims 
which  condemn,  without  regard  to  circumstances,  the  imposi 
tion  on  a  people  of  a  foreign  and  despotic  yoke  are  no  portion 
of  the  moral  code  of  this  country.  The  people  of  India  may  or 
may  not  desire  to  be  governed  by  Great  Britain ;  but  assuredly 
the  wishes  of  the  people  of  India  are  not  the  grounds  on  which 


152  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  SOUTH: 

an  English  statesman  would  justify  Great  Britain  in  holding 
that  country  in  subjection.  It  follows,  then,  that  it  is  consistent 
with  political  morality,  as  conceived  in  this  country,  that  in 
certain  cases  the  principles  of  constitutional  government  and 
those  of  non-intervention  should  be  set  aside,  and  that  a  govern 
ment  should  compel  a  portion  of  its  subjects,  or  a  people  should 
intervene  to  compel  another  people,  to  accept  a  form  of  govern 
ment  at  variance  with  the  wishes  of  those  on  whom  it  is  im 
posed.*  ISTow,  if  it  be  admitted  that  circumstances  can  in  any 
case  create  an  exception  to  the  ordinary  rules  of  political  arid 
international  practice  regarded  as  binding  upon  civilized  nations, 
we  need  have  little  hesitation  in  asserting  that  the  present  case 
is  exceptional. 

What  is  the  fact  with  which  we  have  to  deal  ?     A  few  linn- 


*  "  There  are  few  questions  which  more  require  to  be  taken  in  hand  by  ethical 
and  political  philosophers,  with  a  view  to  establish  some  rule  or  criterion  whereby 
the  justifiable-ness  of  intervening  in  the  affairs  of  other  countries,  and  (what  is  some 
times  fully  as  questionable)  the  justifiableness  of  refraining  from  intervention,  may 
be  brought  to  a  definite  and  rational  test.  Whoever  attempts  this  will  be  led  to 
recognize  more  than  one  fundamental  distinction,  not  yet  by  any  means  familiar  to 
the  public  mind,  and  in  general  quite  lost  sight  of  by  those  who  write  in  strains 
of  indignant  morality  on  the  subject.  There  is  a  great  difference  (for  example) 
between  the  case  in  which  the  nations  concerned  are  of  the  same,  or  something 
like  the  same,  degree  of  civilization,  and  that  in  which  one  of  the  parties  to  the 
situation  is  of  a  high,  and  U*e  other  of  a  very  low,  grade  of  social  improvement. 
To  suppose  that  the  sam^nternatiorial  customs,  and  the  same  rules  of  interna 
tional  morality,  can  obtain  between  one  civilized  nation  and  another,  and  between 
civilized  nations  and  barbarians,  is  a  grave  error,  and  one  which  no  statesman 
can  fall  into,  however  it  may  be  with  those  who,  from  a  safe  and  unresponsible 
position,  criticize  statesmen.  Among  many  reasons  why  the  same  rules  cannot 
be  applicable  to  situations  so  different,  the  two  following  are  among  the  most  im 
portant.  In  the  first  place,  the  rules  of  ordinary  international  morality  imply 
reciprocity.  But  barbarians  will  not  reciprocate.  They  cannot  be  depended  on  for 
observing  any  rules.  Their  minds  are  not  capable  of  so  great  an  effort,  nor  their 
will  sufficiently  under  the  influence  of  distinct  motives.  In  the  next  place,  nations 
which  are  still  barbarous  have  not  got  beyond  the  period  during  which  it  is  likely 
to  be  for  their  benefit  that  they  should  be  conquered  and  held  in  subjection  by 
foreigners.  Independence  and  nationality,  so  essential  to  the  due  growth  and  deve 
lopment  of  a  people  further  advanced  in  improvement,  are  generally  impediments  to 
theirs.  The  sacred  duties  which  civilized  nations  owe  to  the  independence  and 
nationality  of  each  other,  are  not  binding  towards  those  to  whom  nationality  and 
independence  are  either  a  certain  evil,  or  at  best  a  questionable  good.  The  Romans 
were  not  the  most  clean-handed  of  conquerors,  yet  would  it  have  been  better  for 
Gaul  and  Spain,  Xumidia  and  Dacia,  never  to  have  formed  part  of  the  Roman  Em 
pire  ?  To  characterize  any  conduct  whatever  towards  a  barbarous  people  as  a  vio 
lation  of  the  law  of  nations,  only  shows  that  he  who  so  speaks  has  never  considered 
the  subject.  A  violation  of  great  principles  of  morality  it  may  easily  be ;  but  barba 
rians  have  no  rights  as  a  nation  except  a  right  to  such  treatment  as  may,  at  the 
earliest  possible  period,  fit  them  for  becoming  one.  The  only  moral  laws  for  the 
relation  between  a  civilized  and  a  barbarous  government,  are  the  universal  rules  of 
morality  between  man  and  man." — A  Ftw  Words  on  Non- Intervention,  by  J.  S.  Mill. 
Frasers  Magazine,  December,  1859. 


HO  W  FAR  JUSTIFIABLE.  153 

dred  thousand  slaveholders  break  loose  from  the  political  system 
with  which  they  were  connected,  and  erect  a  confederacy  on 
the  avowed  basis  of  slavery.     From  the  past  history  of  these 
men,  and  from  the  condition  of  society  presented  in  the  coun 
try  which  they  govern,  we  have  the  clearest  proofs  as  to  what 
this  scheme  involves.     We  know  that  it  involves  the  mainte 
nance  of  a  social  system  at  once  retrograde  and  aggressive — 
retrograde  towards  those  on  whom  it  is  imposed,  and  aggressive 
towards  the  communities  with  which  it  comes  into   contact. 
We  know  that  it  involves  the  design  of  extending  the  power  of 
this  confederation,   and,   with  its   power,   the  worst   form   of 
human  servitude  which   mankind  has  ever  seen,  over  the  fair 
est  portions  of  the  Ts~ew  World.     We  know  that  in  all  proba 
bility — with  a  probability  approaching  to  certainty — it  involves 
an  attempt  to  revive  a  great  scandal,  the  African  slave  trade — 
a  scandal  which  all  Christian  nations  have  agreed  to  stigmatize, 
and  which  Great  Britain  in  particular  has  for  half  a  century 
devoted  her  best  influence,  and  a  vast  outlay  of  treasure,  to 
suppress.     We  know  that  this  body  aims  at  political  indepen 
dence,  not  for  that  lawful  purpose  which  makes  political  inde 
pendence  the  first  of  national  rights — the  purpose  of  working 
out  a  people's  proper  destiny — but  for  a  purpose  which  makes 
it  the  greatest  of  national  crimes — the   purpose  of  riveting 
dependence  upon  another  race — the  purDpse  of  extending  and 
consolidating  a  barbarous  tyranny.     E"o>£,  these  being  the  ends 
for  which  the  Southern  Confederacy  seeks  to  establish  itself,  is 
its  subjugation  by  the  Xorth  justifiable  ?     I  hold  that  the  right 
is  as  clear  as  the  right  to  put  down  murder  or  piracy.     As  a 
nation,  we,  in  common  with  civilized  Europe,  have  proscribed 
as  piracy  the  African  slave  trade.    In  the  opinion  of  competent 
judges  the  inter-state  slave  trade  in  the  South  involves  enormi 
ties  as  great  as  any  that  have  been  enacted  on  the  coast  of 
Guinea  or  in'the  middle  passage  ;*  and  it  is  certain  that  the 

*  "  I  affirm  that  there  exists  in  the  United  States  a  slave  trade,  not  less  odious 
or  demoralizing,  nay,  I  do  in  my  conscience  believe,  more  odious  and  more  demo 
ralizing  than  that  which  is  carried  on  between  Africa  and  Brazil.  North  Carolina 
and  Virginia  are  to  Louisiana  and  Alabama  what  Congo  is  to  Rio  Janeiro.  .  .  God 
forbid  that  I  should  extenuate  the  horrors  of  the  slave  trade  in  any  form !  But  I 
do  think  this  its  worst  form.  Bad  enough  it  is  that  civilized  men  should  sail  to  an 
uncivilized  quarter  of  the  world  where  slavery  exists,  should  there  buy  wretched 
barbarians,  and  should  carry  them  away  to  labour  in  a  distant  land :  bad  enough  ! 
But  that  a  civilized  man,  a  baptized  man,  a  man  proud  of  being  a  citizen  of  a  free 
state,  a  man  frequenting  a  Christian  church,  should  breed  slaves  for  exportation, 
and,  if  the  whole  horrible  truth  must  be  told,  should  even  beget  slaves  for  exporta 
tion,  should  see  children,  sometimes  his  own  children,  gambolling  around  him  from 
infancy,  should  watcli  their  growth,  should  become  familiar  with  their  faces,  and 
should  then  sell  them  for  four  or  five  hundred  dollars  a  head,  and  send  them  to  lead 


154  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  SOUTH: 

purpose  for  which  the  Confederacy  is  established — the  appro 
priation  of  the  Territories  for  slave  cultivation — cannot  be 
carried  into  effect,  without  giving  a  powerful  impulse  certainly 
to  one,  and  probably  to  both,  of  those  crimes.  Unless,  there 
fore,  we  are  prepared  to  retreat  from  the  position  which,  as  a 
nation,  we  have  deliberately  taken  up  and  consistently  held 
for  half  a  century,  we  cannot  deny  that  the  overthrow  of  the 
Southern  Confederacy  would  -be  a  public  benefit;  and,  even 
though  we  should  question  the  perfect  purity  of  the  motives  of 
those  who  undertake  it,  the  act  itself  must  be  acknowledged  as 
a  service  to  the  civilized  world. 

That  the  overthrow  of  the  Southern  Confederacy  is  justifia 
ble — so  far  as  the  duties  of  the  North  to  that  community  are 
concerned — appears  to  me,  therefore,  as  clear  as  any  doctrine 
in  the  code  of  political  ethics.  But,  being  justifiable,  is  it 
practicable  ?  Into  the  general  merits  of  this  branch  of  the 
argument  it  would  not  become  me  to  enter;  but,  without  pre 
tending  to  pronounce  an  opinion  on  the  ability  of  the  North,  to 
subdue  the  revolted  states,  it  may  be  permitted  me  to  advert 
to  some  considerations  bearing  upon  this  part  of  the  case  which 
do  not  appear  to  have  received  from  those  who  have  under 
taken  to  discuss  it  that  degree  of  attention  to  which  their  impor 
tance  would  seem  to  entitle  them. 

The  argument  of  tliQse  who  deny  the  ability  of  the  North  to 
effect  its  purpose  of^econstructing  the  Union  rests,  for  the 
most  part,  on  historical  analogies,  and,  more  particularly,  on 
the  successful  resistance  made  by  the  ancestors  of  the  present 
belligerents  to  the  authority  of  Great  Britain.  Now  a  brief 
consideration  will  show  that  the  present  case  differs  from  all 
previous  examples  of  successful  revolt  in  some  important 
respects,  and  we  shall  find  that,  in  every  instance  in  which  the 
analogy  fails,  the  difference  points  in  the  same  direction — it 
indicates  greater  facility  of  conquest  in  the  preseift  struggle. 

In  the  parallel  furnished  by  the  revolutionary  war  of  the  last 
century  it  is  an  obvious  point  of  difference  that  Great  Britain, 
in  that  case,  carried  on  the  contest  under  the  enormous  disad 
vantage  of  being  separated  from  her  enemy  by  an  intervening 
ocean — a  disadvantage  of  such  magnitude  as,  in  the  opinion  of 
De  Tocqueville,  to  detract  indefinitely  from  the  prowess  of  the 

in  a  remote  country  a  life  which  is  a  lingering  death,  a  life  about  which  the  best 
thing  that  can  be  said  is  that  it  is  sure  to  be  short ;  this  does,  I  own,  excite  a  hor 
ror  exceeding  even  the  horror  excited  by  that  slave  trade  which  is  the  curse  of  the 
African  coast.  And  mark  :  I  am  not  speaking  of  any  rare  case,  of  any  instance  of 
eccentric  depravity.  I  am  speaking  of  a  trade  as  regular  as  the  trade  in  pigs 
between  Dublin  and  Liverpool,  or  as  the  trade  in  coals  between  the  Tyne  and  the 
Thames."— Lord  Macaulay's  Speech  on  the  Sugar  Duties. 


110  W  FAR  PR  A  OTIC  ABLE.  155 

victors — whereas  now  the  North  stands  close  to  its  foe.  Such 
a  difference  is  almost  enough  to  deprive  of  all  force  arguments 
drawn  from  the  analogy  of  the  two  cases;  yet  the  circum 
stance  has  been  scarcely  adverted  to  by  those  who  have  most 
strenuously  pressed  the  analogy.  But,  passing  by  a  point 
which  is  peculiar  to  the  comparison  with  the  war  of  independ 
ence,  there  are  others  in  which  the  present  is  distinguished 
from  all  previous  examples  of  insurrectionary  success. 

And,  first,  while  the  South  is  in  the  present  war  liable  to  an 
absolute  interruption  of  its  external  trade,  it  is  of  all  countries 
which  ever  existed  the  least  capable  of  encountering  such 
a  crisis.  I  say,  the  South  is  liable  to  an  absolute  interruption 
of  its  external  trade,  for,  notwithstanding  the  exploits  of  the 
Jferrimac,  it  is  quite  inconceivable — having  regard  to  the 
mercantile  marine  and  the  mechanical  resources  of  the  con 
tending  parties — that  the  North  should  not  be  able  in  the  long 
run  to  maintain  a  permanent  superiority  at  sea.  It  may,  there 
fore,  be  assumed  that  the  new  Confederacy  will  be  absolutely 
cut  off  from  commercial  intercourse  with  foreign  nations ;  and 
this  being  so,  it  is  obvious  further  to  remark  that  of  all  commu 
nities  in  the  world  it  is  the  one  least  prepared  to  meet  such  an 
emergency — the  least  capable  of  supplying  its  own  wants.  To 
feel  convinced  of  this  we  have  but  to  recall  its  industrial  sys 
tem — a  system  composed  of  slaves  brutalized  by  ignorance 
and  tyranny,  accustomed  to  perform  a  raw  routine  operations, 
and  utterly  inefficient  if  taken  from  their  ordinary  tasks.  It  is 
true,  indeed,  the  crisis  has  compelled  a  certain  deviation  from 
the  old  routine  ;  the  cultivation  of  corn  has  already  in  some 
places  been  substituted  for  that  of  cotton.  But  it  cannot  be 
doubted  that  the  change  has  been  effected  at  a  great  loss  of 
industrial  power,  and,  however  slaves  may  be  turned  from  one 
kind  of  agricultural  pursuit  to  another,  beyond  the  ran^e  of 
agriculture  they  must  be  absolutely  useless.  The  plantation 
slave  of  the  South  can  never  be  converted  into  a  skilled  artisan  : 
consequently  all  those  commodities  for  the  supply  of  which  the 
South  has  been  accustomed  to  rely  on  the  industrial  skill  of 
foreign  countries  it  must  now  be  content  to  dispense  with  alto 
gether.  Now  amongst  such  commodities  are  many  which  are 
absolutely  essential  for  the  conduct  of  war.  The  consideration, 
therefore,  is  one  which  touches  a  vital  point  in  the  ability  of 
the  South  to  maintain  a  prolonged  resistance.  Hitherto,  by  its 
plunder  of  the  military  stores  of  the  United  States  while  its 
leaders  were  in  possession  of  the  government,  and  by  the  fruits 
of  its  early  victories,  it  has  been  enabled  to  maintain  itself; 
but,  as  its  present  supplies  become  exhausted  and  cease  to  be 


156  RAILWAYS  AN  ELEMENT  OF  WARFARE. 

replenished  by  successes  in  the  field,  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how 
this  necessity  can  be  met. 

Another  circumstance  which  lias  been  almost  wholly  over 
looked  in  this  argument,  is  the  change   which  railways  may 
effect  in  the  facilities  for  aggressive  warfare.     In  none  of  those 
cases  in  which  a  war  of  independence  has  been   maintained 
with  success  against  the  superior  forces  of  an  invader  has  this 
resource  been  available.     This  consideration  applies  directly  to 
a  point  on  which  great  stress  has  been  laid  by  the  partisans  of 
the  South — the  difficulties  offered  to  conquest  by  mere  vast- 
ness  of  extent.     There  can,  I  suppose,  be  no  doubt  that  this 
circumstance  gives  a  great  advantage  to  the  party  which  is  on 
the  defensive  ;    but  a  country  traversed  by  railways   is,  for 
practical  purposes,  reduced  to  a  tenth  of   its  real  size.     That 
the  novel  conditions  thus  imported   into  military  tactics  have 
not  been  overlooked  by  the  commanders  on  either  side  is  fully 
proved  by  the  nature  of  their  plans,  which  have  been  conceived 
chiefly  with  a  view  to  utilizing  this  new  arm  of  warfare.     Thus 
the  expeditions  to  Hatteras,  to  Roanoke  Island,  and   to  Port' 
Royal,  appear  now  to  have  been  dictated    by  a  consideration 
of  the  command  conferred  by  these  positions  over    the  rail 
ways    which   connect   the   Carolinas.  with    Virginia    on    the 
one  hand,  and  with  Georgia  on  the  other.     Again,  the  im 
portance  of  NashvilleJ  as  a  strategical   point,    consists   in  its 
being   the  central  terminus  of  three  grand  lines,   proceeding 
respectively  from   Washington,    from    Richmond,    and    from 
Charleston  to  the  West ;  and   the  possession  of  Corinth  was 
rendered  important  by  an  analogous  reason.     Railways  have 
thus    introduced   a   new   element   into    warfare   of    sufficient 
importance  to  modify  the  whole   plan   of  a  campaign  ;    and 
railways  apply  directly  to  overcoming  the  impediment  of  dis 
tance — the  circumstance  which  has  been  urged  as  the   most 
insuperable  obstacle  to  the  conquest  of  the  South.* 

*  "  This  is  the  first  great  war,  if  we  except  the  Italian  campaign,  in  which  rail 
ways,  on  any  large  scale,  have  figured  in  warlike  operations.  How  greatly  they 
may  modify  the  ordinary  canons  of  strategj-  it  is  yet  impossible  to  tell.  Already 
many  movements  have  taken  place,  and  positions  been  occupied  and  abandoned, 
which,  except  upon  the  supposition  of  the  new  element  introduced  by  railways, 
would  have  been  utterly  irreconcilable  with  the  old  principles  of  securing  the  base 
and  protecting  the  flanks  of  an  arn^.  Where  there  is  a  railway,  troops  may  be 
moved  through  a  hundred  miles  in  the  time  required  to  march  over  twenty.  And, 
vice  versa,  twenty  miles  to  be  marched  over  may  chance  to  neutralize  the  benefits 
of  a  hundred  miles  of  rail.  But  not  only  is  a  new  and  indefinite  element  intro 
duced  into  the  calculations  of  military  distances  by  the  unequal  means  of  locomotion 
available  at  different  points,  but  in  America  the  vastness  itself  of  the  different  lines 
of  railway  gives  rise  to  a  distinct  and  special  class  of  problems.  It.  is  easy  to 
destroy  twenty  miles  of  railway,  and  even  a  hundred.  A  hundred  miles  were 


IS  RECONSTR  UGTION  EXPEDIENT  f  157 

Again,  in  no  war  of  independence  which  has  been  success 
fully  waged  has  the  invaded  nation  included  among  its  inhabi 
tants  a  multitude,  one-third  of  its  whole  number,  who  were 
either  positively  hostile,  or  at  least  ahsoliitely  indifferent  to  the 
cause.  Such  a  multitude  exists  in  the  midst  of  the  Southern 
population  ;  and  by  this  hostile  or  indifferent  multitude  the 
whole  productive  industry  of  the  country  is  carried  on.  JSrow, 
as  the  Federal  armies  advance  into  the  Southern  States,  what 
will  be  the  behaviour  of  the  negro  population?  They  will 
probably  do  as  they  have  dt»ne  hitherto:  they  will  fly  to  the 
Federal  lines;  and  though  they  should  not  rise  in  insurrection, 
they  will  at  least  cea«e  to  work.  Now  when  the  negroes  cease 
to  work,  how  is  the  South  to  maintain  an  army  ?  The  "  white 
trash"  may  be  made  to  fight,  but  they  will  scarcely  be  made 
to  work — at  all  events  they  will  be  unable  to  do  both.  It  would 
seem,  therefore,  that,  so  soon  as  the  South  is  once  thoroughly 
penetrated  by  the  Northern  armies,  a  collapse  of  its  productive 
system  is  inevitable. 

These  are  some  of  the  circumstances  in  which  the  present 
contest  in  America  differs  from  those  successful  wars  <>f  defence 
with  which  it  is  usual  to  compare  it.  I  am  far  from  intending 
to  say  that  the  considerations  which  have  been  adduced  prove 
the  possibility  of  accomplishing  the  olject  which  the  North  has 
now  in  view  ;  but  they  seem  to  me  to  /show  that  the  facilities 
for  that  purpose  are  greater  than  is  commonly  suppose* i,  and 
they  at  least  suggest  caution  against  building  hasty  conclusions 
upon  inapplicable  precedents. 

But,  thirdly,  assuming  the  reconstruction  of  the  Union  to  be 
practicable,  is  it  expedient?  And  here  we  are  met  at  once  by 
the  consideration — how  is  the  conquered  South  to  be  governed! 
I  can  see  but  one  way  in  which  this  can  be  effected — by  the 
overthrow  of  representative  institutions  in  the  Southern  States, 
and  the  substitution  of  a  centralized  despotism  wielde  1  by  the 
Federal  government.  I  cannot  imagine  that  there  could  be 
any  escape  from  this  course;  for,  granting  that  in  cert-,i:i  dis 
tricts  of  the  South  there  might,  be  a  considerable  element  of 
population  favourable  to  the  Union,  it  is  impossible  to  doubt 
that  in  the  main  the  people  would  be  thoroughly  disaffected; 
and  how  are  popular  institutions  to  be  worked  through  the 


lately  destroyed  by  the  Confederate^.  But  it  would  be  very  difficult  to  destroy 
several  thousand.  Moreover,  the  extent  of  the  country  must  always  make  it  doubt 
ful  at  what  point  it  becomes  expedient  to  destroy  so  useful  an  auxiliary  until  it  is 
found  too  late  to  do  so.  It  follows,  we  think,  pretty  conclusively,  the  cardinal 
maxim  in  any  American  war  involving  large  tracts  of  country  must  be  to  take  pos 
session  of  the  railroads." — National  Review,  April,  1862,  p.  496. 


158  RECOURSE  TO  DESPOTIC  EXPEDIENTS. 

agency  of  a  disaffected  people  ?  A  recourse  to  despotic  expe 
dients  would,  therefore,  so  far  as  we  can  jndge,  be  forced  upon 
the  North.  Now,  it  is  evident  that  such  a  step  involves  con 
siderations  of  the  greatest  gravity — considerations  before  which 
the  citizens  of  the  Union  may  well  pause  and  ponder.  If, 
indeed,  the  consequences  of  this^  policy  could  be  certainly  con 
fined  within  the  designed  limits,  there  would,  perhaps,  be  little 
need  for  hesitation.  At  the  worst,  it  would  be  no  more  than 
the  substitution  of  one  form  of  arbitrary  power  for  another — 
of  a  civilized  for  a  barbarous  despotism — and  if  the  new  go 
vernment  were  only  equal  to  its  task  of  reconstructing  Southern 
society,  its  advent  would  be  wholly  a  blessing.  But  despotic 
principles  once  introduced  into  the  system  of  the  Federal  go 
vernment,  is  it  conceivable  that  their  influence  would  end  in 
the  attainment  of  the  object  for  the  accomplishment  of  which 
they  were  at  the  first  invoked  ?  Is  it  likely  that  the  same  men, 
who  should  be  exercising  arbitrary  authority  over  the  whole  of 
the  Southern  States,  would  be  content,  in  governing  the  North 
ern,  to  confine  themselves  within  constitutional  bounds  ?  Would 
there  not  be  the  danger  that  habits  acquired  in  ruling  one  divi 
sion  of  the  republic  would  affect  modes  of  action  in  the  other, 
and  that,  so  soon  as  popular  institutions  became  troublesome  in 
the  working,  they  would  be  superseded  in  favour  of  the  more 
direct  and  obvious  expedients  of  despotism  ?  Besides  it  must 
be  remembered  that  ^mething  more  would  be  required  to  go 
vern  a  disaffected  South  than  a  staff  of  officials.  The  bureau 
cracy  would  need  to  be  supported  by  an  army,  and  the  army 
would  of  necessity  be  at  the  disposal  of  the  central  government. 
It  would  be  easy,  of  course,  to  prescribe  constitutional  rules, 
to  define  with  precision  the  limits  of  administrative  authority ; 
but  when  the  temper  of  arbitrary  sway  had  been  formed,  when 
the  example  of  an  arbitrary  system  was  constantly  present  to 
the  eye  and  familiar  to  the  thoughts,  when  the  means  of  giving 
effect  to  arbitrary  tastes  were  at  hand,  it  is  difficult  to  believe 
that  the  barrier  of  forms  and  definitions  would  be  long  respected, 
and  that  sooner  or  later  the  attempt  would  not  be  made  to  give 
to  the  principles  of  arbitrary  government  a  more  extended  ap 
plication.  The  task  of  holding  the  South  in  subjection  would 
thus,  as  it  seems  to  me,  inevitably  imperil  the  cause  of  popular 
institutions  in  North  America.  Now,  the  loss  of  popular 
government  would  be  a  heavy  price  to  pay  for  the  subjugation 
of  the  South,  even  though  that  subjugation  involved  the  over 
throw  of  the  Slave  Power. 

It  is  satisfactory  to  find  that  there  are  politicians  in  America 
who  are  alive  to  the  momentous  interests  which  this  aspect  of 


REFORMING  SOUTHERN  SOCIETY.  159 

the  question  involves.  In  a  remarkable  speecli  lately  delivered 
in  New  York,  the  danger  to  which  I  have  adverted  was  very 
fairly  and  with  much  courage  exposed.  The  speaker,  however, 
contended  that,  by  boldly  following  out  a  policy  of  emancipa 
tion — by  striking  at  the  root  of  disaffection  through  its  cause — 
the  danger  in  question  might  be  evaded.  The  views  expressed 
are  so  important,  and,  looking  at  the  recent  course  of  events, 
give  so  much  promise  of  becoming  fruitful,  that  I  think  it  right 
to  state  them  in  the  eloquent  words  of  their  author. 
"  Is  this  government,  in  struggling  against  rebuilt 
tablishing  its  authority,  reduced  to  a  policy  which  would  nearly 
obliterate  the  line  separating  democracy  from  absolutism  ?  Is  it 
really  unable  to  stand  this  test  of  its  character  ?  For  this  is  the 
true  test  of  the  experiment.  If  our  democratic  institutions  pass 
this  crisis  unimpaired,  they  will  be  stronger  than  ever ;  if  not, 
the  decline  will  be  rapid  and  irremediable.  But  can  they  pass 
it  unimpaired?  Yes.  This  republic  has  her  destiny  in  her 
hands.  She  may  transform  her  greatest  danger  and  distress 
into  the  greatest  triumph  of  her  principles.  There  would  have 
been  no  rebellion,  had  there  not  been  a  despotic  interest  incom 
patible  with  the  spirit  of  her  democratic  institutions ;  and  she 
has  the  glorious  and  inestimable  privilege  of  suppressing  this 
rebellion,  by  enlarging  liberty  instead  of  restraining  it,  by  grant 
ing  rights  instead  of  violating  them.iBr* .  .  How  can  you 
rely  upon  the  Southern  people  unless  tiny  are  sincerely  loyal, 
and  how  can  they  be  sincerely  loyal  as  long  as  their  circum 
stances  are  such  as  to  make  disloyalty  the  natural  condition  of 
their  desires  and  aspirations  ?  They  cannot  be  faithful  unless 
their  desires  and  aspirations  change.  And  how  can  you 
change  them  ?  By  opening  before  them  new  prospects  and  a 
new  future.  Look  at  the  other  side  of  the  picture.  Imagine 
slavery  were  destroyed  in  consequence  of  this  rebellion.  Slav 
ery,  once  destroyed,  can  never  be  restored.  .  .  .  Southern 
society  being,  with  all  its  habits  and  interests,  no  longer  identi 
fied  with  slavery,  that  element  of  the  population  will  rise  to 
prominent  influence  which  most  easily  identifies  itself  with 
free  labour — I  mean  the  non-slaveholding  people  of  the  South. 
They  have  been  held  in  a  sort  of  moral  subjection  by  the  great 
slave-lords.  Not  for  themselves  but  for  them  they  were  dis 
loyal.  The  destruction  of  slavery  will  wipe  out  the  prestige  of 
their  former  rulers  ;  it  will  lift  the  yoke  from  their  necks  ;  they 
will  soon  think  for  themselves,  and  thinking  freely  they  will  not 
fail  to  understand  their  true  interests.  They  will  find  in  free 
labour  society  their  natural  element ;  and  free  labour  society  is 
naturally  loyal  to  the  Union.  Let  the  old  political  leaders  fret 


160  THE  CONDITION  OF  TIME  IGNORED. 

as  they  please,  it  is  the  free  labour  majority  that  will  give  to 
society  its  character  and  tone.  This  is  what  I  mean  by  so 
reforming  Southern  society  as  to  make  loyalty  to  the  Union  its 
natural  temper  and  disposition.  This  done,  the  necessity  of  a 
military  occupation,  the  rule  of  force,  will  cease  ;  our  political 
life  will  soon  return  to  the  beaten  track  of  self-government, 
and  the  restored  Union  may  safely  trust  itself  to  the  good  faith 
of  a  reformed  people.  The  antagonistic  element  which  conti 
nually  struggled  against  the  vital  principles  of  our  system  of 
government  once  removed,  we  shall  be  a  truly  united  people, 
with  common  principles,  common  interests,  common  hopes,  and 
a  common  future."* 

Such  is  the  spirit  in  which  the  question  of  reconstructing  the 
Union  is  now  approached  by  some  of  the  leading  minds  of  the 
North,  and  such  are  the  views  which  are  now  rapidly  gaining 
ground  through  the  country.  While,  however,  readily  acknow 
ledging  the  proof  which  these  speculations  afford  at  once  of  a 
full  appreciation  of  the  real  difficulties  to  be  encountered  and 
of  phih  sophic  boldness  in  meeting  them,  I  am  unable  to  see  that 
the  remedy  suggested  would  obviate  the  danger  which,  it  is 
admitted,  would  exist.  In  the  reasoning  which  I  have  quoted 
no  account  appears  to  be  taken  of  the  element  of  time,  so  all- 
important  to  a  realization  of  the  results  anticipated.  The  abo 
lition  of  shivery,  it  is  truly  said,  would  strike  directly  at  the 
authority  of  the  slavtf-lords.  The  stigma  at  present  affixed  to 
industry  being  removed,  the  industrial  classes  would  quickly 
rise  in  social  importance,  and  a  free  labouring  population  would 
doubtless  in  the  end  predominate  in  the  South.  But  these 
results  could  not  be  accomplished  in  a  moment.  A  disloyal 
people  would  not  be  rendered  loyal  by  a  single  stroke  of  the 
maim  mi  tier's  wand — 

rerum  imperiis  hominumque 
Tot  tantisque  minor,  quern  ter  vindieta  quaterque 
Imposita  haud  unquani  rnisera,  formidine  privet. 

The  habits  of  obedience  are  not  easily  broken  through,  tradi 
tional  feelings  are  powerful,  and  the  influence  of  the  slave-lords 
would  probably  long  outlive  the  institution  from  which  it  de 
rives  its  strength.  A  considerable  period  would,  therefore,  of 
neccs-i'y,  elapse  before  that  pervading  sentiment  of  loyalty 
could  be  established,  under  the  guidance  of  which  alone,  as  all 
admit,  the  rule  of  the  Union  could  be  safely  entrusted  to  popu 
lar  institutions. 

But  there  is  another  result  which  might  follow  from  the  con- 

*  Speech  of  the  Hon.  Carl  Schurz,  delivered  in  the  Cooper  Institute,  New  York, 
6th  March,  1862.  • 


TRUE  POLICY  FOR  THE  NORTH.  161 

quest  of  the  South  and  the  overthrow  of  slavery,  the  probable 
effects  of  which  on  the  settlement  of  Southern  society  it  may  be 
worth  while  for  a  moment  to  consider.  Is  it  not  probable  that, 
in  the  case  we  now  contemplate,  there  would  be  an  extensive 
immigration  into  the  Southern  States  of  free  settlers  from  the 
North?  And  what  would  be  the  effect  of  this  new  ingredient 
on  the  society  of  the  South  ?  I  imagine  it  would  in  the  main 
be  a  wholesome  one.  The  new  settlers  would  carry  with  them 
the  ideas,  the  enterprise,  the  progressive  spirit  of  free  society, 
and  would  act  as  a  leaven  of  loyalty  on  the  disaffection  of  the 
South  ;  but  I  think  it  is  equally  plain  they  would  introduce  into 
Southern  society,  at  all  events  for  some  time,  a  new  element  of 
disturbance.  They  would  appear  there  as  intruders,  as  the 
missionaries  of  a  new  social  and  political  faith — a  faith  hateful 
to  the  old  dominion,  as  living  monuments  of  the  humiliation  of 
the  Southern  people.  Is  it  not  inevitable  that  between  them 
and  the  old  aristocracy  a  bitter  feud  would  spring  up — a  feud 
which  would  soon  be  exasperated  by  mutual  injuries,  and  might 
not  impossibly  be  transmitted,  as  a  heritage  of  hatred,  to  future 
generations?  Now  such  a  condition  of  society  would  be  little 
favourable  to  the  sudden  conversion  of  the  South  to  sentiments 
of  loyalty  ;  and,  pending  this  happy  consummation,  how  is  the 
South  to  be  governed  ?  We  are  thus  forced  back  upon  our  ori 
ginal  difficulty — the  difficulty  of  governing  a  disaffected  South, 
from  which  it  seems  to  me  the  path  of  despotism  offers  the  only 
escape. 

For  these  reasons,!  cannot  think  that  the  North  is  well  advised 
in  its  attempt  to  reconstruct  the  Union  in  its  original  proportions. 
At  the  same  time  I  am  far  from  thinking  that  the  time  for 
peace  has  yet  arrived.  What,  it  seems  to  me,  the  occasion  de 
mands,  and  what,  I  think,  the  moral  feeling  of  Europe  should 
support  the  North  in  striving  for,  is  a  degree  of  success  which 
shall  compel  the  South  to  accept  terms  of  separation,  such  as 
the  progress  of  civilization  in  America  and  the  advancement  of 
human  interests  throughout  the  world  imperatively  require. 
To  determine  the  exact  amount  of  concession  on  the  part  of 
the  South  which  would  satisfy  these  conditions  is  no  part  of  my 
purpose.  The  attempt  would  be  futile.  It  will  suffice  that  I 
indicate  as  distinctly  as  I  can  that  settlement  of  the  controversy 
which  would,  in  my  judgment,  adequately  secure  the  ends 
proposed,  and  which  on  the  whole  is  most  to  be  desired. 

Any  scheme  for  the  readjustment  of  political  society  in  North 
America  ought,  it  seems  to  me,  to  embrace  two  leading  objects : 
— 1st,  the  greatest  practical  curtailment  of  the  domain  of  the 
Slave  Power;  and  2nd,  the  reabsorption  into  the  sphere  of  free 

11 


162        PECULIAR  POSITION  OF  THE  BORDER  STATES. 

society  of  as  much  of  the  present  population  of  the  Slave  States 
as  can  be  reabsorbed  without  detriment  to  the  interests  of  free 
dom.  On  the  assumption  which  I  have  made  of  the  ability  of 
the  Northern  people  to  subdue  the  South,  these  two  conditions 
resolve  themselves  into  one.  The  only  obstacle  to  a  complete 
reconstruction  of  the  Union  lies,  on  this  assumption,  in  the  dif 
ficulty  of  combining  in  the  same  political  system  forms  of 
society  so  different  as  those  presented  by  the  Northern  and 
Southern  States.  "We  may  then,  for  the  purpose  of  our  discus 
sion,  confine  our  attention  to  the  latter  of  the  two  conditions 
which  have  been  laid  down. 

It  will  be  remembered  that,  in  considering,  in  a  former  chap 
ter,  the  consequences  of  confining  the  Southern  Confederacy 
within  the  area  already  settled  under  slavery,  it  was  pointed 
out  that  slavery,  thus  restricted,  would  be  at  once  arrested  in 
its  development,  and  that  the  check  given  to  the  system  would 
be  first  felt  in  the  older  or  breeding  states.  In  these  states  the 
profits  from  slavery  being  derived  chiefly  from  the  sale,  not 
from  the  employment,  of  slaves,  so  soon  as  the  creation  of  new 
markets  for  the  human  stock  was  precluded,  the  reasons  for 
maintaining  the  institution  would  cease.  The  slaveholders, 
obliged  henceforward  to  look  to  the  soil  as  the  sole  source  of 
their  profits,  would  be  forced  upon  improved  methods  of  culti 
vation  ;  and  before  tjjie  necessity  for  improved  methods  slavery 
would  perforce  disappear.  Now,  this  being  the  position  of 
slavery  in  the  breeding  states,  it  is  evident  that,  so  soon  as  the 
progress  of  the  Northern  armies  shall  have  made  it  clear  that 
the  Slave  Power  must  fail  in  its  original  design — still  more 
when  the  South  is  menaced  with  positive  curtailment  of  its 
dominions — the  slaveholders  of  these  states  will  understand  that, 
so  far  as  their  interests  are  concerned,  the  institution  is  doomed, 
But  this  conviction  will  be  brought  home  to  them  by  still  more 
cogent  reasons  than  those  which  reflection  on  their  economic 
condition  would  furnish.  The  breeding  states  are  also  the  bor 
der  states,  and  they  are  therefore  the  states  on  which  the  evils 
of  invasion  must  in  the  first  instance  fall.  Already  near  the 
whole  of  Virginia,  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and  Missouri,  is  in 
possession  of  the  Northern  armies.  Observe,  then,  the  light 
in  which  in  the  present  aspect  of  affairs,  the  question  of  secession 
must  present  itself  to  a  border  slaveholder.  He  sees  that  for 
him  the  extinction  of  slavery  is  rendered  certain  in  an  early 
future.  His  slaves  are  flying  to  the  Federal  armies.  His 
country  is  suffering  all  the  evils  of  invasion.  The  tie  which 
bound  him  to  the  Slave  Power  is  hopelessly  severed.  In  this 
position  of  affairs  is  it  not  probable  that,  were  the  opportunity 


MS.  LINCOLWS  PROPOSAL;  ITS  OPPORTUNENESS.     163 

of  re-establishing  social  order  upon  a  new  basis  presenred  to 
him,  he  would  seize  it,  and,  the  old  system  of  society  having 
irrevocably  passed  away,  that  he  would  in  good  faith  cast  in 
his  lot  with  a  new  order  of  things. 

Such  an  opportunity  has  been  created  for  the  border  states 
by  the  adoption  by  Congress  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  recent  message, 
recommending  a  co-operation  on  the  part  of  the  Federal  Govern 
ment  with  such  states  as  are  willing  to  accept  a  policy  of 
emancipation.  The  scheme,  indeed,  has  been  pronounced  in 
this  country  to  be  chimerical — framed  less  with  a  view  to  the 
actual  exigencies  of  the  case  than  to  catch  the  applause  of 
Europe.  I  venture  to  say  that  never  was  criticism  less  appro 
priate,  or  censure  more  unjust.  Practicality  and  unaffected 
earnestness  of  purpose  are  written  in  every  line  of  the  mes 
sage.  In  the  full  knowledge  evinced  of  the  actual  circum 
stances  of  the  border  states,  combined  with  the  adroitness  with 
which  advantage  is  taken  of  their  peculiar  position  as  affected 
by  passing  events,  there  is  displayed  a  rare  political  sagacity, 
which  is  not  more  creditable  to  its  author  than  is  the  genuine 
sincerity  which  shines  through  his  simple  and  weighty  words. 
Had  the  scheme  indeed  been  propounded  at  the  outset  of  the 
contest  (as  so  many  well-meaning  empirics  among  us  were  for 
ward  to  advise) — while  the  Slave  Power  was  yet  unbroken, 
and  the  prospects  of  a  future  more  prosperous  than  it  had  yet 
known  seemed  to  be  opening  before  it,  there  would  have  been 
some  point  in  the  strictures  which  have  been  indulged  in,  some 
ground  for  invidious  comment ;  but,  proposed  at  the  present 
time,  it  is,  as  I  venture  to  think,  a  suggestion  than  which  few 
more  wise  or  more  important  have  ever  been  submitted  to  a 
legislative  body. 

Returning  to  our  argument,  it  has  been  seen  that,  in  the  event 
of  the  tide  of  war  being  decisively  turned  against  the  South, 
the  position,  alike  industrial  and  geographical,  of  the  border 
states  would  greatly  favour  a  reconstruction  of  society  in  them 
upon  .principles  of  freedom.  Now,  this  result  would  be  power 
fully  helped  forward  by  another  circumstance  in  respect  to 
which  they  differ  from  the  more  southern  states  of  the  Confe 
deracy — the  presence  in  their  population  of  a  large  element  of 
free  cultivators.  This  interest,  already  in  some  of  the  border 
states*  almost  balancing  that  of  slavery,  would,  it  is  evident,  in 

*  For  example  in  Missouri.  The  position  of  slavery  in  that  state  in  1856  is  thus 
described  by  Mr.  "Weston: — "  In  large  portions  of  Missouri  slavery  has  never  existed- 
to  any  important  extent.  The  counties  adjoining  Iowa,  ten  in  number,  contained  in 
1856  57,255  whites  and  only  871  slaves.  Of  the  one  hundred  and  seven  counties 
ninety  five,  occupying  four-fifths  of  the  area  of  the  state,  contained  in  1856  669,921 
whites,  and  only  57,471  slaves,  or  nearly  twelve  to  one.  In  twenty-five  of  these 


164:  FACILITIES  FOR  INCORPORATION. 

the  altered  condition  of  affairs,  rise  rapidly  into  importance. 
Occupying  that  place  in  the  social  arrangements  towards  which 
the  whole  community  was  obviously  tending,  constantly  increas 
ing  in  numbers  as  the  progress  of  emancipation  brought  new 
recruits  to  its  ranks — a  nucleus  of  loyalty  around  which  all  the 
best  elements  of  society  might,  gather — this  section  of  the  popu 
lation  would  easily  take  the  lead  in  the  politics  of  their  several 
states,  would  give  tone  to  the  whole  community,  and  determine 
its  march. 

It  would  thus  seem  that,  the  might  of  the  Slave  Power  once 
effectually  broken,  the  incorporation  of  the  border  states  into  a 
social  system  based  on  industrial  freedom  would  not  present 
any  insuperable  difficulties.  It  would  be  only  necessary  to  give 
support  to  tendencies  which  the  actual  state  of  things  would 
call  at  once  into  operation.  Now,  what  might  be  done  in  the 
border  states,  where  a  slave  society  actually  exists,  might,  it  is 
evident,  be  accomplished  with  much  greater  facility  in  those 
districts  of  the  South  which,  though  enrolled  as  slave  states, 
have  in  reality  yet  to  be  colonized — for  example,,  in  Texas  and 
Arkansas.  In  Texas  population  is  represented  by  considerably 
less  than  one  person  to  the  square  mile ;  in  Arkansas,  by  four; 
and  of  this  sprinkling  of  people  three-fourths  in  both  states  are 
composed  of  free  persons.  To  the  recovery  of  these  states  to 
the  dominion  of  free^jm  there  would  at  least  be  no  social  or 
political  obstacles  which  might  not  be  easily  overcome.  Arkan 
sas  and  Texas  recovered,  Louisiana  alone  of  the  states  on  the 
west  of  the  Mississippi  would  remain  to  the  Slave  Power ;  and 
is  it  not  possible  that  Louisiana  also  might  be  recovered  to  free 
dom  ?  Doubtless  its  pro-slavery  tendencies  are  intensely  strong; 
its  slave  population  almost  equals  the  free ;  but  the  state  is  a 
small  one,  and  the  prize  would  be  worth  an  extraordinary  effort. 
Louisiana  conquered,  Arkansas  and  Texas  recovered  to  freedom, 
the  whole  course  of  the  Mississippi  would  foe  opened  to  the 
Western  States;  and  the  Slave  Power — shut  up  within  its  nar 
rowed  domain,  bounded  on  one  side  by  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and 
the  ocean,  on  the  other  by  the  line  of  the  Alleghanies  and  the 
Mississippi, — might  with  some  confidence  be  left  to  that  pro 
cess  of  natural  decay  which  slave  institutions,  arrested  in  their 
expansion,  inevitably  entail. 

I  have  hitherto  discussed  this  question  with  reference  to  the 

counties  there  was  an  absolute  decrease  of  the  number  of  slaves  from  1850  to  1856. 
In  the  whole  ninety-five  counties  the  increase  of  slaves  in  that  period  was  only 
2,264.  Slavery  is  not  strong,  and  has  never  been  so,  except  in  twelve  counties  in 
the  centre  of  the  state,  embracing  about  one-fifth  of  its  area,  and  lying  principally 
upon  the  Missouri  river." — Progress  of  Slavery,  p.  14. 


TEE  NEGRO  QUESTION.  165 

interests  of  the  Northern  people  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  those 
of  civilization,  as  identified  with  the  overthrow  of  the  Slave 
Power,  on  the  other.  But  there  is  another  interest  involved  in 
the  settlement  of  the  American  quarrel  which  may  not  seem  at 
once  to  be  identical  with  either  of  these — the  interest  of  the 
present  race  of  negro  slaves.  The  mode  of  terminating  the 
struggle  which  I  have  indicated  as  that  which  seems  to  me  on 
the  whole  most  desirable,  though,  if  realized,  it  would  probably 
bring  freedom  to  a  million  of  slaves,  would  yet,  it  is  not  to  be 
denied,  leave  some  three  millions  still  in  bondage;  and  there 
are  those  who  will  probably  think  that  this  after  all  would  be 
but  a  sorry  result  from  the  great  opportunities  of  the  present 
conjuncture,  and  from  the  great  sacrifices  which  it  has  already 
cost.  Far  wiser,  it  will  be  said,  as  well  as  more  generous 
would  it  be,  now  that  the  hand  has  been  put  to  the  plough,  not 
to  look  back  till  the  work  has  been  effectually  accomplished, 
and  the  great  wrong  once  for  all  rased  out.  With  the  aspira 
tions  of  those  who  hold  this  language  I  trust  I  can  sympathize  ; 
but  it  seems  to  me  that  they  fail  to  appreciate  the  magnitude 
of  the  problem  which  the  policy  they  recommend  involves. 
No  solution  of  that  problem  would  be  complete,  or  would  be 
worthy  of  the  enlightened  views  of  the  present  time,  which 
did  not  include,  besides  the  mere  mamimission  of  the  negro 
population,  their  protection  against  theiofforts  of  their  former 
masters  to  recover  their  lost  power,  and  no  less,  the  provi 
sion  for  them  of  a  career  in  the  future.  Now,  let  us  sup 
pose  the  first  of  these  ends  to  be  accomplished — emancipa 
tion  to  be  decreed — and  overlooking  the  objection  to  what 
would  be  the  necessary  condition  of  an  attempt  to  give  effect 
to  the  second — the  establishment  in  the  South  of  a  despotic 
rule  wielded  by  the  central  government — how,  let  us  ask, 
is  it  proposed  to  provide  a  career  for  four  millions  of  emanci 
pated  slaves?  It  will  be  said,  the  land  still  remains  to  be 
cultivated  ;  and  the  labour  of  the  negro"S  will  be  as  neces 
sary  for  its  cultivation  after  they  have  been  emancipated  as 
before.  The  career  for  the  emancipated  negro  would,  there 
fore,  be  plain  :  he  would,  as  a  free  labourer,  hire  his  services  to 
those  who  now  take  them  by  force.  In  a  word,  a  population 
of  four  million  slaves  might  be  converted  into  a  population  of 
four  million  free  labourers.  This  is,  in  truth,  the  only  mode  of 
solving  the  question  that  deserves  serious  attention  ;  for  I  do 
not  think  that  the  plans,  of  which  we  have  lately  heard  some 
thing,  of  a  wholesale  removal  of  negroes  from  the  American 
continent — even  where  they  are  not  advanced  for  the  purpose 
simply  of  discrediting  the  cause  of  emancipation — can  be  so 


1 66  WHOLESALE  EMANCIPA  TION. 

regarded.  But,  taking  the  policy  of  immediate  and  wholesale 
emancipation  in  its  best  form,  and  judging  it  in  a  spirit  of  can 
dour,  is  it  a  reasonable  expectation  that,  looking  at  all  the  con 
ditions  of  the  case,  the  result  which  is  contemplated  would  be 
realized, — that  the  negro,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  planter,  on 
the  other,  would  lend  themselves  to  the  scheme?  I  am  cer 
tainly  not  going  to  oppose  to  the  proposal  the  exploded  calumny 
of  the  incorrigible  indolence  of  the  negro.  I  am  quite  ready 
to  admit,  what  nothing  but  the  pernicious  influence  of  slavery 
on  the  negro  would  ever  have  given  a  pretext  for  denying,  and 
what  our  West  Indian  experiment  has  now  conclusively  esta 
blished,*  that  the  negro  in  freedom  is  amenable  to  the  same 
influences  as  the  white  man — -that  he  can  appreciate  as  keenly 
independence,  comfort,  and  affluence,  and  that,  like  him,  he 
will  work  and  save  and  speculate  to  obtain  these  blessings : 
nevertheless,  while  conceding  all  this,  I  confess  I  am  unable  to 
see  my  way  to  the  result  that  is  here  expected. 

The  grand  difficulty  to  be  encountered  in  any  scheme  of  eman 
cipation  which  proposes  to  convert  suddenly  a  regime  of  forced 
into  one  of  hired  labour,  is  the  state  of  feeling  which  slavery 
leaves  behind  it  in  the  minds  of  those  who  have  taken  part  in 
its  working.  With  the  master  there  is  a  feeling  of  exasperation 
which  leads  him  to  thwart  the  operation  of  a  system  which  has 
been  forced  upon  hiigj  and  which  is  odious  to  him,  combined 
with  a  desire  to  re-establish  under  some  new  form  his  old 
tyranny;  while  the  emancipated  bondman  naturally  desires  to 

*  A  very  important  contribution  to  our  knowledge  on  the  working  of  emancipa 
tion  in  the  West  Indies  has  just  appeared  from  the  pen  of  Mr.  Edward  Bean 
Underhill,  from  whose  work,  "  The  West  Indies,  their  Social  and  Religious  Condi 
tion"  I  extract  the  following  testimony  of  Captain  Darling,  the  present  governor  of 
Jamaica,  to  the  capacity  of  the  negro  for  freedom : — u  The  proportion  of  those  who 
are  settling  themselves  industriously  on  their  holdings,  and  rapidly  rising  in  the 
social  scale,  while  commanding  the  respect  of  all  classes  of  the  community,  and  some 
of  whom  are,  to  a  limited  extent,  themselves  the  employers  of  hired  labour,  paid  for 
either  in  money  or  in  kind,  is,  I  am  happy  to  think,  not  only  steadily  increasing, 
but  at  the  present  moment  is  far  more  extensive  than  was  anticipated  by  those  who 
are  cognizant  of  ail  that  took  place  in  this  colony  in  the  earlier  days  of  negro  free 
dom.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  in  fact,  that  an  independent,  respectable,  and,  I 
believe,  trustworthy  middle  class  is  rapidly  forming.  If  the  real  object  of  emanci 
pation  was  to  place  the  freed  man  in  such  a  position  that  he  might  work  out  his 
own  advancement  in  the  social  scale,  and  prove  his  capacity  for  the  full  and  rational 
enjoyment  of  personal  independence  secured  by  constitutional  liberty,  Jamaica  will 
afford  more  instances,  even  in  proportion  to  its  large  population,  of  such  gratifying 
results,  than  any  other  land  in  which  African  slavery  once  existed.  Jamaica  at 
this  moment  presents,  as  I  believe,  at  once  the  strongest  proof  of  the  complete  suc 
cess  of  the  great  measure  of  emancipation  as  relates  to  the  capacity  of  the  emanci 
pated  race  for  freedom,  and  the  most  unfortunate  instance  of  a  descent  in  the  scale 
of  agricultural  and  commercial  importance  as  a  colonial  community." — The  West 
Indies,  their  Social  and  Religious  Condition,  pp.  458,  459J 


TEE  WEST  INDIAN  EXPERIMENT.  167 

break  for  ever  with  a  mode  of  life  which  is  associated  with  his 
degradation.  These  principles  of  disturbance  were  brought 
fully  into  play  in  the  West  Indian  experiment  ;*  but  they  were 
in  that  case  largely  controlled  by  the  condition  of  things  in  the 
West  Indian  islands.  The  strong  arm  of  the  British  Govern 
ment  put  an  effectual  restraint  on  the  tyrannical  temper  of  the 
masters  ;f  while  in  some  of  the  islands  the  preoccupation  of  the 
land  closed  against  the  slave  the  one  refuge  from  a  hated  lot. 
This,  for  example,  was  the  case  in  Barbadoes,  and  in  this  island, 
accordingly,  a  system  of  hired  industry  was  easily  introduced. 
But  the  case  of  Barbadoes  was  exceptional,  and,  in  the  main, 
emancipation  in  the  West  Indies  has  issued,  not  in  the  conver 
sion  of  a  population  of  slaves  into  a  population  of  labourers 
working  for  hire,  but  in  the  creation  of  a  numerous  class  of 
small  negro  proprietors,  each  cultivating  in  independence  his 

*  "The  House  of  Assembly  at  the  time  of  emancipation  possessed  the  fullest  pow 
ers  to  remedy  any  defect  in  that  great  measure.  But  it  abused  its  powers.  Instead 
of  enacting  laws  calculated  to  elevate  and  benefit  the  people,  it  pursued  the  contrary 
course.  By  an  Ejectment  Act  it  gave  to  the  planters  the  right  to  turn  out  the 
enfranchised  peasantry,  without  regard  to  sex  or  age,  at  a  week's  notice,  from  the 
homes  in  which  they  had  been  born  and  bred ;  to  root  up  their  provision  grounds, 
and  to  cut  down  the  fruit  trees  which  gave  them  both  shelter  and  food ;  in  order 
that,  through  dread  of  the  consequences  of  refusal,  the  negroes  might  be  driven  to 
work  on  the  planters'  own  terms.  .  .  .  Driven  from  his  cabin  on  the  estate  by  the 
harsh  or  unjust  treatment  of  his  former  master,  the  fttee  labourer  had  to  build  a  cot 
tage  for  himself.  Immediatel}r  the  customs  on  shir^es  for  the  roof  to  shelter  hi3 
family  from  the  seasons  were  more  than  doubled ;  while  the  duty  on  the  staves  and 
hoops  for  sugar  hogsheads,  the  planters'  property,  was  greatly  reduced.  And  when 
the  houses  were  built,  they  were  assessed  at  a  rate  which,  in  some  parishes,  bore  so 
heavily  on  the  occupants,  as  to  lead  to  the  abandonment  of  their  dwellings  for  shan 
ties  of  mud  and  boughs." — The  West  Indies,  &c,  pp.  216-218. 

"  Some  proprietors  at  emancipation  drove  their  labourers  from  the  estates,  and  one 
was  mentioned  who  was  living  at  the  time  on  the  north  side  of  the  island.  He 
swore  that  he  would  not  allow  a  '  nigger '  to  live  within  three  miles  of  his  houne ;  of 
course  the  man  was  speedily  ruined." — Ibid,  pp  268,  269. 

f  "  If  the  House  of  Assembly  has  had  any  policy  at  all  in  its  treatment  of  the 
labouring  clashes,  it  has  been  a  'policy  of  alienation.'  Only  the  perpetual  interposi 
tion  of  the  British  government  has  prevented  the  enfranchised  negro  from  being 
reduced  to  the  condition  of  a  serf  by  the  selfish  partizan  legislation  of  the  Jamaica 
planters.  ...  As  slaves,  the  people  were  never  instructed  in  husbandry,  or  in  the 
general  cultivation  of  the  soil ;  as  free  men,  the  legislature  has  utterly  neglected 
them,  and  they  have  had  to  learn  as  they  could  the  commonest  processes  of  agricul 
ture.  No  attempt  has  been  made  to  provide  a  fitting  education  for  them  ;  for  the 
paltry  grant  of  some  £2,500  a  year  cannot  in  any  sense  be  said  to  be  a  provision  for 
their  instruction.  .  .  .  Speaking  of  this  feature  of  Jamaica  legislation,  Earl  drey, 
writing  in  1853,  says: — 'The  Statute  Book  of  the  island  for  the  last  six  years  pre 
sents  nearly  a  blank,  as  regards  laws  calculated  to  improve  the  condition  of  the  popu 
lation,  and  to  raise  them  in  the  scale  of  civilization.'  ....  Happily  the  present 
governor,  following  in  the  steps  of  many  of  his  predecessors,  deals  impartially  with 
every  class,  strives  to  prevent  as  far  as  possible  the  mischievous  effects  of  the  selfish 
policy  that  has  been  pursued,  and  exerts  himself  to  rescue  the  government  from  tho 
grasp  of  personal  interest  and  ambition." — Ibid.  pp.  222,  223. 


168          NATURAL  DIFFICULTIES  OF  EMANCIPATION. 

own  patch  of  ground.  This  result,  however,  is  not  that  which 
is  contemplated  by  those  who  desire  wholesale  emancipation  in 
the  Southern  States,  and  indeed — owing  to  influences  which  had 
little  existence  in  the  West  Indies,  but  which  would  be  brought 
to  bear  upon  the  American  negro — is  not  to  be  expected.  But, 
passing  by  this,  the  thing  at  present  to  be  attended  to  is  that, 
wherever  the  waste  land  was  abundant,  the  experiment,  so  far 
as  the  point  at  present  under  consideration  is  concerned,  broke 
down.  The  plantations  were  extensively  deserted,  and  the 
negroes,  instead  of  becoming  hired  labourers,  became  peasant 
farmers  on  the  vacant  land.  Such  has  been  the  result  of  eman 
cipation  in  the  West  Indies.  Those  principles  of  disturbance 
which  slavery  leaves  after  it,  though  largely  controlled,  have 
yet  been  sufficiently  powerful  to  prevent  the  general  establish 
ment  of  a  system  of  hired  labour.* 

Now  what  would  be  the  chance  of  replacing  negro  slavery 
with  hired  labour  in  the  Southern  States  ?  If  we  look  to  the 
condition  of  society  there,  we  find  that  the  usual  disturbing 
causes  exist  in  exaggerated  force,  while  there  is  little  to 
counteract  them  in  the  other  conditions  of  the  case.  Nowhere 
else  has  pro-slavery  fanaticism  been  so  strong ;  the  belief  in 
the  moral  soundness  of  the  institution  has  been  nowhere  so 
implicit ;  nowhere,  therefore,  would  the  introduction  of  a  system 
of  free  industry  havmfid  encounter  on  the  part  of  the  masters 

*  The  following  is  Mr.  Underbill's  conclusion  as  to  the  general  results  of  the  expe 
riment  in  Jamaica : — "  Emancipation  did  not,  indeed,  bring  wealth  to  the  planter ; 
it  did  not  restore  fortunes  already  trembling  in  the  grasp  of  mortgagees  and  usurers ; 
it  did  not  bring  back  the  palmy  days  of  foreign  commerce  to  Kingston,  nor  assist  in 
the  maintenance  of  protective  privileges  in  the  markets  of  Great  Britain ;  it  did  not 
give  wisdom  to  planters,  nor  skill  to  agriculturists  and  manufacturers ;  but  it  has 
brought  an  amount  of  happiness,  of  improvement,  of  material  wealth  and  prospective 
elevation  to  the  enfranchised  slave  in  which  every  lover  of  man  must  rejoice.     Social 
order  everywhere  prevails.     Breaches  of  the  peace  are  rare.     Crimes,  especially  in 
their  darker  and  more  sanguinary  forms,  are  few.     Persons  and  property  are  perfectly 
safe.     The  planter  sleeps  in  security,  dreads  no  insurrection,  fears  not  the  torch  of 
the  incendiary,  travels  day  or  night  in  the  loneliest  solitudes  without  anxiety  or  care. 
The  people  are  not  drunkards,  even  if  they  be  impure ;  and  this  sad  feature  in  the 
moral  life  of  the  people  is  meeting  its  check  in  the  growing  respect  for  the  marriage 
tie,  and  the  improved  life  of  the  white  community  in  their  midst.    .    .   .    The  general 
prospects  of  the  island  are  improving.     Estates  are  now  but  rarely  abandoned,  while 
in  many  places  portions  of  old  estates  are  being  brought  again  under  cultivation.     It  is 
admitted  by  all  parties  that  sugar  cultivation  is  profitable.     At  the  same  time,  it  is 
very  doubtful  whether  any  large  proportion  of  the  emancipated  population  will  ever 
be  induced  to  return  to  the  estates,  or,  at  least,  in  sufficient  numbers  to  secure  the 
enlargement  of  the  area  of  cultivation  to  the  extent  of  former  days.     Higher  wages 
will  do  somewhat  to  obtain  labourers,  and  they  can  be  afforded,  and  the  return  of 
confidence'  will  bring  capital ;  but  the  taste  and  habit  of  independence  will  continue 
to  operate,  and  induce  the  agricultural  classes  to  cling  to  the  little  holdings  which 
they  so  industriously  occnpy." — The  West  Indies,  pp.  455,  457. 


IMPOSSIBILITY  OF  PROTECTING  THE  NEGRO.        169 

sucli  violent  prejudices.     Again,  the  desire  of  the  emancipated 

negro  to  break  with  his  former  mode  of  life  could  scarce  fail  to 
be  here  extremely  strong;  for,  although  the  treatment  of  the 
slaves  was  perhaps  harsher  in  the  West  Indies  than  it  has  for 
the  most  part  been  in  the  Confederate  States,  the  degradation 
of  the  race  had  neither  there  nor  elsewhere  reached  so  low  a 
point ;  and,  as  a  principle  of  repulsion,  the  feeling  of  shame 
would  probably  be  not  less  powerful  than  that  of  hatred.  On 
the  other  hand,  who  can  suppose, — bearing  in  mind  the  un 
worthy  antipathy  to  the  negro  which  still  animates  the  great 
majority  of  the  American  people,  and  which  perhaps  emanci 
pation  would  do  little  to  remove  ;  bearing  in  mind  the  effects 
of  a  long  complicity  with  slavery  on  the  traditions  of  the 
Federal  government — w.ho,  I  say,  impressed  witli  these  facts, 
can  suppose  that  the  negro  of  the  Southern  States  would  in 
that  people  and  government  find  efficient  protectors?  Would 
there  be  no  fear  that  the  protector  might  have  less  sympathy 
with  the  victim  than  even  the  tyrant  against  whom  protection 
was  claimed?  But  even  on  the  assumption  that  the  spirit  of 
the  Federal  government  and  of  the  Northern  people  was 
excellent,  would  the  task  of  protecting  the  negro  be  feasible  in 
the  South  ?  Throughout  the  whole  slave  domain,  but  especially 
in  the  more  southern  of  the  Slave  States;  there  are,  as  we  know, 
vast  regions  of  wilderness.  Over  thes£  wanders  a  miserable 
white  population,  idle,  lawless,  and  cherishing  for  the  iK-gro  a 
contempt,  which,  on  his  being  raised  to  their  level  by  emanci 
pation,  would  be  quickly  converted  into  hatred.  Now,  remem 
bering  what  has  happened  in  those  West  Indian  Islands  which 
offer  the  nearest  analogy  to  the  present  case — remembering 
what  has  occurred,  for  example,  in  Trinidad* — is  it  not  almost 
certain  that,  so  soon  as  emancipation  was  decreed,  the  negroes 

*  "Three  years  after  emancipation,  in  1841,  the  condition  of  the  island  [Trinidad] 
was  most  deplorable:  the  labourers  had  for  the  most  part  abandoned  the  estates, 
and  taken  possession  of  plots  of  vacant  land,  especially  in  the  vicinity  of  the  towns, 
without  purchase  or  lawful  right.  Vagrancy  had  become  an  alarming  habit  of  great 
numbers ;  every  attempt  to  take  a  census  of  the  population  was  baffled  by  the  fre 
quent  migrations  which  took  place.  Criminals  easily  evaded  justice  by  absconding 
to  places  where  they  were  unknown,  or  by  hiding  themselves  in  the  den.se  forests 
which  in  all  parts  edged  so  closely  on  the  cleared  lands.  Drunkenness  increased  to 
an  enormous  degree,  assisted  by  planters  who  freely  supplied  rum  to  the  labourers  to 
induce  them  to  remain  as  cultivators  on  their  estates.  High  wages  were  obtained 
only  to  be  squandered  in  amusement,  revelry,  and  dissipation :  at  the  same  time, 
these  high  wages  induced  a  diminished  cultivation  of  food,  and  a  corresponding 
increase  in  price  and  in  the  importation  of  provisions  from  the  neighbouring  islands 
and  continent.  The  labourers  steadily  refused  to  enter  into  any  contracts  which 
would  oblige  them  to  remain  in  the  service  of  a  master;  this  would  too  much  have 
resembled  the  state  of  slavery  from  which  they  had  but  just  emerged." — T/te  West 
Indies,  &c.,  pp.  68-69. 


170        PROGRESSIVE  EMANCIPATION'  MORE  HOPEFUL. 

would  betake  themselves  to  these  wilds  ?  and,  dispersed  over 
this  vast  region,  what  would  be  their  fate  ?  How  could  they 
be  protected  I  How  could  they  be  trained  to  a  higher  mode 
of  life  ?  They  would  there  encounter  the  white  man  in  a  con 
dition  as  wretched  as  their  own.  His  example  could  not  fail 
to  influence  them.  They  would  acquire  his  vagabond  tastes, 
and  emulate  his  idleness.  They  would  be  wholly  at  his  mercy. 
Efficient  protection  would  be  impossible  over  so  vast  a  region. 
The  growth  of  regular  industry  would  be  hopeless;  and  the  too 
probable  result  would  be  that  the  whole  South  would  be  aban 
doned  to  the  dominion  of  nature,  and  negro  and  white  man  go 
to  ruin  together. 

On  the  other  hand,  looking  at  the  problem  of  emancipation, 
as  it  would  present  itself  under  that  settlement  of  the  American 
question  which  I  have  ventured  to  indicate  as  desirable,  I  am 
unable  to  see  that  it  would  involve  any  difficulty  which  a  gov 
ernment,  really  bent  on  accomplishing  its  object,  might  not  be 
fairly  expected  to  overcome.  In  the  first  place,  it  would,  as 
thus  presented,  at  once  assume  more  manageable  proportions. 
The  evil  might  be  dealt  with  in  detail,  and  the  experience 
acquired  in  the  earlier  efforts  might  be  made  available  at  the 
further  stages  of  the  process.  The  attack  would  in  the  first 
instance  be  directed  against  the  weakest  parts  of  the  system — 
the  institution  in  the  Warder  states.  In  those  states,  not  only  is 
slavery  less  strongly  established  than  in  the  states  further 
south,  it  is  also  milder  in  its*  character.  The  relation  subsisting 
between  master  and  slave  being  less  embittered,  the  obstacles 
to  a  re-establishment  of  their  connexion  upon  a  new  footing 
would  be  less  formidable.  The  wilderness,  indeed — the  great 
est  difficulty  of  the  case — would  not  be  wholly  absent  even  in 
the  border  states  ;  but  its  dimensions  would  here  be  less  vast, 
and  these,  as  the  abolition  of  slavery  drew  a  fresh  immigration 
from  the  adjoining  states  of  the  North,  would  in  all  probability 
be  rapidly  reduced.  Even  should  the  negroes  repair  to  the 
wilds  in  considerable  numbers,  the  case  would  not  be  so  hope 
less.  They  would  meet  here  in  many  districts,  not  the 
"  mean  whites,"  but  a  population  of  free  cultivators,  whose 
example,  it  is  not  to  be  doubted,  would  exercise  on  their  charac 
ter  and  pursuits  an  influence  as  wholesome  as  that  of  the  others 
would  be  baneful.  In  these  peasant  cultivators  the  free  negro 
would  behold  industry  in  its  most  respectable  and  most  pros 
perous  form ;  and,  with  their  example  before  him,  he  would 
probably  settle  down  into  the  same  condition  of  life  with  them. 

But  while  in  the  reannexed  states  a  career  would  be  provi 
ded  for  the  emancipated  negro,  his  brother,  still  left  in  bond- 


ULTIMA  TE  EXTINCTION  OF  SLA  VER  7.  171 

age  in  the  South,  would  ere  long  find  that  for  him  also  a  new 
era  was  opening.  Cut  off  from  the  rich  virgin  soils  of  the 
south-west,  the  older  states  of  the  Confederacy  would  quickly 
reach  the  condition  of  Virginia  and  Maryland.  The  inevitable 
goal  would  soon  come  in  sight,  and  the  foreseen  necessity  of  a 
change  would  gradually  reconcile  the  minds  of  the  planters  to 
a  policy  of  emancipation.  The  spirit  in  which  the  task  would 
be  undertaken,  when  prescribed  to  them  as  it  were  by  Nature 
herself,  would,  it  may  be  fairly  expected,  be  far  different  from 
that  with  which  it  would  be  encountered,  if  enforced  at  the 
bayonet's  point  by  hostile  and  hated  Northerners.  Self-inter 
est,  no  longer  overborne  by  passion  or  pride,  would  teach  the 
necessity  of  calmly  considering  a  position  of  which  the  urgency 
could  no  longer  be  concealed  or  evaded ;  and  the  full  know 
ledge  and  large  experience  of  the  planters  might  be  expected  to 
conduct  them  to  that  solution  which  would  be  in  most  accordance 
with  the  welfare  of  the  negro  and  their  own.  Meanwhile,  the 
policy  of  emancipation  once  commenced,  its  effects  would  not 
be  confined  to  the  states  which  adopted  it.  The  working 
states,  deprived  of  their  supply  of  labour  from  the  North, 
would  be  compelled  to  adopt  new  maxims  of  management. 
The  life  of  the  slave  would  become  for  his  master  an  object  of 
increased  consideration ;  his  comfort  would  be  more  attended 
to,  and  his  condition  would  rapidly  imWove.  With  the  pro 
gress  of  time  the  destiny  of  the  older  States  would  overtake 
these  also,  and  thus,  by  a  gradual  but  sure  process,  the  greatest 
blot  on  modern  civilization  would  be  expunged  from  American 
soil. 


THE  END. 


J 


T  TRR  ARY 

14  DAY  USE 

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